Yudhoyono’s quip may ring true for many analysts and even some voters in the capital who are wondering if the gubernatorial race has become an overture for the 2019 presidential election.

The fact that political heavyweights such as Yudhoyono, Prabowo Subianto and Megawati Soekarnoputri have been directly involved and leading coalition talks in choosing candidates has created a sense that the three political bigwigs are using the Jakarta election as a proxy battleground.

Yudhoyono, Prabowo and Megawati competed against each other in past presidential elections.

While it is unclear if Prabowo, who has never won a presidential election, will try his luck in 2019, Yudhoyono is barred by the Constitution from running after serving two presidential terms. Megawati, who replaced former president Abdurrahman Wahid in 2002, may have given up her presidential ambitions in 2014 when she, in her words, “assigned” then Jakarta governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, an Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) member, to run for president.

In the Jakarta election, Megawati’s PDI-P, along with the Golkar Party, the Hanura Party and the NasDem Party, is backing incumbent Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama.

Yudhoyono’s coalition, which consists of his Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the United Development Party (PPP), nominated the former president’s eldest son, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono. Prabowo’s Gerindra Party joined hands with his loyal partner in the opposition camp, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), to field Muslim scholar and former education minister Anies Baswedan.

Ahok’s nomination by Megawati was a foregone conclusion, but the emergence of Anies and Agus as Ahok’s rivals surprised many and has sparked speculation that the two are setting their sights on the 2019 presidential election rather than the gubernatorial post in the capital.

Anies made his presidential ambitions public when he joined the Democratic Party’s presidential convention in 2013. Agus, who has zero experience in politics after serving in the military for 16 years, is reportedly being groomed by Yudhoyono to be his true political heir.

 Political parties have confirmed that the Jakarta election will be a crucial vote that will set the stage for the 2019 general elections.

Jokowi’s meteoric rise after he won the Jakarta election in 2012 seems to have further cemented the city’s status as the most coveted prize for political parties. Jokowi, who ran for president after serving as governor for less than two years, significantly boosted his party’s electability in 2014.

“Jakarta is a mini-Indonesia. We must deliver well [in Jakarta] because our performance in the [Jakarta] gubernatorial election will reflect on our performance in the general elections,” PDI-P deputy secretary-general Eriko Sotarduga said. The PDI-P won the most votes in the 2014 legislative election.

Other political parties are thinking the same as the PDI-P, said Ikrar Nusa Bhakti of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. “This is why Yudhoyono, Prabowo and Megawati are competing to control the city,” he said.

Ikrar believed that Democratic Party members were hoping that Agus, if elected, could improve the party’s image nationwide and would get legitimacy or bargaining power to be nominated as a presidential candidate.

The party admitted that Agus’ nomination was meant to boost his party’s performance in 2019, but refused to say more about the possibility of Agus running for the nation’s top post. “The presidential election is still far away,” Democratic Party spokesman Didi Irawadi Syamsudin said.

The Gerindra Party, meanwhile, said it had made a political deal with Anies that, if elected, he would not run for president in 2019. “We don’t want go through the same experience again,” Gerindra deputy chairman Fadli Zon said, referring to Jokowi’s decision to run in the 2014 presidential election and destroy Prabowo’s presidential bid after serving as governor for less than two years.

Gerindra backed Jokowi in the 2012 Jakarta election.

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