<![CDATA[The mandate of Article 29 paragraph (2) of Law No.2/2008 requires that the recruitment of candidates for regional heads/deputy regional heads by political parties must be carried out democratically and openly. However, the arrangement and implementation are left to each political party. This study analyzes the problem of recruitment of prospective regional head candidates by political parties in a democratic and open manner. Then provide ideas as alternative solutions. This research is a normative legal research with a statute approach. The theory of democracy is used as a guide for qualitative analysis and is presented descriptively. The results of this study conclude that the recruitment of prospective regional head candidates/deputy regional heads whose arrangements and implementation are handed over to political parties, tend to be carried out undemocratically and not openly. Political parties tend to do it exclusively at the party elite level. Although, at the regional level, the selection of candidates is carried out by some political parties, but the final is determined by the leadership at the central level. In addition, recruitment patterns are also very vulnerable to money politics. This is because political parties have full authority in recruiting prospective regional head candidates, so they are not reached by the supervision of Bawaslu and KPU. In the future, improvements need to be made so that the arrangements related to the recruitment of candidates for regional heads/deputy regional heads are strictly regulated in the Regional Election Law, not in the AD/ART of each political party.]]>
