After the recruitment process, and prior to election, political parties undertake candidate selection. This chapter treats candidate-selection as the dependent variable but ends with a discussion of how these procedures can impact the health of democracy in Pakistan. The chapter comparatively analyzes the process of candidate selection and the criteria of selection to demonstrate that the process is affected by a variety of factors, including the circumstances prior to an election, the nature of the constituency, inter-party competition, intra-party organization and the resources available to the party, and the party’s perception of voting behavior. The key finding is that political parties that contest competitive seats and do not fund their candidates’ campaigns—PPP, PML and PTI—rely on candidates who are locally influential and have the financial capacity to manage their own campaigns, while parties contesting safe seats like ANP and MQM prioritize candidates who have strong party affiliation and party loyalty.