There has been a great deal of speculation over Sandiaga Uno's next move. Yes, Prabowo Subianto's running mate is still supporting his campaign's increasingly outlandish claims that their ticket won last Wednesday's election (despite the quick count projections and ongoing real vote count all indicating they were soundly defeated by President Joko Widodo) but he is doing so in such a clearly reluctant manner (see our "Sad Sandi" meme explainer) that even a casual observer could guess he didn't believe his own campaign's claims.
So what happens to Sandiaga, who resigned from his position as Jakarta vice governor to join Prabowo's ticket, should he fail to be elected to the vice presidency once the official election results are in (on or before May 22)? Many speculated that he would return to his old job as second-in-command of the capital (as no statue would bar him from doing so) but today he clearly stated that wouldn't be the case.
"For me, the vice governor's seat is my past, not something to go back to. The people of Jakarta want a new deputy governor, we have to move on," Sandiaga said yesterday as quoted by Kompas.
His statement was in direct response to a question from a reporter about whether he would return to the vice governorship if he and Prabowo officially lost the election.
Sandiaga's response is not too surprising, considering earlier this week he said that the choice of vice governor rightfully belonged to the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and that they should fill the position as soon as possible.
Since Sandiaga vacated the position in August in order to join Prabowo's ticket, Gerindra and PKS have been engaged in a few very public spats over whose cadre should fill the seat. It's understood that they finally agreed to let PKS have the position, though the fact that there has not been a replacement vice governor since led to speculation that it was deliberately being left vacant in case Sandiaga wanted to retake it.
So what might be next for Sandiaga if not a return to Jakarta politics? Well, he may want to refocus on his business career, considering the wealthy entrepreneur is known to have spent over $100 million of his own fortune funding his and Prabowo's campaign.
Many observers believe that Sandiaga was willing to spend that amount of money on Prabowo's campaign because he also saw it as an investment in his own presidential run in 2024.
But if a shot at the country's highest office is his ultimate goal, one might wonder why Sandiaga would give up being vice governor of Jakarta, one of the most high-profile leadership positions in the country. We'll just have to wait and see.