Why do people run for elective office? Indeed, it is a central topic in political science that arguably is controversial to reveal, but always appealing since public authority remains in office. This study provides an explorative analysis to investigate local elites’ motives running for local parliament and village offices respectively in Kebumen, Indonesia. In examining individual’s motives, experiences and meanings of candidates are analysed using thematic analysis methods to capture emerging ideas of initial motives, enabling and constraining factors that affect the motives, and how both motives alter. The empirical findings of this study show that “people demand” and “community service” are both socially driven motives which act as a catalyst for the initial motives in candidacy process. In contrast, “monetary incentives” and “personal satisfaction” are both individually driven motives, which in turn replace the initial motives in response to high-cost political competition, that is so-called money politics. This study also captures the emergence of religious motive in the shifting process of the socially driven to the individually driven motives. Eventually, the study affirms that both motives, in combination, constitute a political motive as a desire of power to hold an elective office.