The City of Surakarta has conducted an open selection to fill local government officials’ positions. This activity was aimed at finding qualified officials in accordance with the mandate of the law to enforce the merit system. With ethnographic methods, including participant observation, indepth interviews, and secondary data collection, the study found that the open selection process was implemented not in accordance with the mandate of the law to enforce the merit system. It was intervened by the local mayor's interests, so there is no guarantee that those who pass the selection were candidates with the required competencies, but rather reflect the interests of the mayor. The selection mechanisms were conducted only as a formality to meet regulatory demands. The study also found the existence of bureaucratic pathology but conducted legally, reflected in the form of mayor demand to the selection committee in order to accommodate the chosen names to be passed in the selection, although they do not meet the best competencies. Selection committees tend to accommodate the interests of the authorities because they have a vested interest in continuing to be employed again in the future when they show a harmonious interest with the authorities. The condition is caused by a strong culture of patrimonialism that still occur in the Indonesian Government and the enactment of decentralization system which gives the local government too much of authority.