The involvement of local Islamic boarding school (Pesantren) elite in regional head election in East Java becomes winning determiner. In direct local election, there are roles of religious elite which significantly influences constituent's vote. Elite utilizes religious hegemony in increasing societies politic participation during election. The era of new religious movement changes the tendencies of thinking paradigm that for the first time women emerges as regional head. This paper was aimed to analyses the hegemony of religious elite based on Pesantren in postmodernism era in regional head election especially at East Java. This research used qualitative research with descriptive perspective and content analysis of qualitative data which revealed that there are hegemony and patron client movement of Islamic boarding school (Pesantren) among kyai, students, alumni, sympathizer, and Pesantren communities as strategy to win regional head. In this research, researcher used elite theory approach and politic participation theory. Research data obtains from library and document analysis from the related institution. The formulation of this problem is how religious elite hegemony the societies in increasing public participation and convincing voters to vote women candidates as governor. The analysis result remarks the hegemony of religious elite becomes tool to obtain the power in regional head election because there are big influences of religious elite functioning giving dogmas to society through religious routines ritual such as religion speech.
