In the life of each municipality, settlement leadership is always a key factor of success. The study demonstrates that stable loyalty and confidence in municipal leadership is felt not only toward the figure of the leader but also his entourage, i.e., the administrative staff and the representative body. The primary data collection in the framework of the research conducted by the Institute for Regional Studies enabled us to examine a specific layer of local elites in peripheral areas from various perspectives. The study reviews the composition, role, and functions of the representative body during the successive local government election cycles in Baranya County in Hungary, with a view to examining the subjective determinants of settlement success.