One of the largest democracies in the world, Indonesia holds elections from the national to the subnational levels. This process inexorably involves hundreds of candidate nominations, with most candidate selections being made by parties. This article investigates how Indonesian parties selected their candidates for subnational executive elections (Pilkada) between 2005 and 2020. Analyzing the formal procedures and practices through which two major Indonesian political parties, the Indonesian Democratic Party Struggle (PDIP) and Functional Groups Party (Golkar), selected their candidates in subnational elections, this article finds that the process tends to be less democratic but more centralistic. It further argues that intra-party politics within these two parties generated distinct patterns in these parties candidate selection processes. This article concludes that there exists a paradox, in which parties select candidates through centralized processes while simultaneously demanding governmental decentralization. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.