Abstract As a biggest modern Musleem organization, Muhammadiyah has long experienced in the changing political system in Indonesia from authoritarian regime to procedural democracy. This research tries to explore the grass root Muhammadiyah's elite in direct regent election contestation. Mix-research method was employed with combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. All respondends of Muhammadiyah's Village Board were selected from three regencies, Bantul, Gunungkidul and Sleman in Yogyakarta Province as a capital of Muhammadiyah organization. This findings is contrary with Muhammadiyah electoral behavior at national level with three internal characteristics - a tendency to avoid partisan politics, independent rational investigation and divided elitesl. However, in the election of local leaders (direct election), Muhammadiyah's electoral behavior is characterized with partisan politics, collective action and unified elites, Keywords: Muhammadiyah, electoral behavior, partisanship, elite, partisan politics, democracy.