The electoral districts and methods of election shall be decided by the localities concerned.[3] As a result of this procedural latitude, the delegates to the National Council were either elected by the provincial assemblies or appointed by the military governors or came with no formal credentials whatever. All officials were ordered to continue in their posts. The revolutionists still exerted control over large military bodies in the South and held many of the provinces under their military leaders or juntas, so that Yüan proceeded cautiously in the creation of his first administration. He chose personalities acceptable to the revolutionists, but appointed no outstanding men of Sun's Tung Mêng Hui. The parliamentary system looked well enough on the surface, but the basis of government had disappeared and the problem of mass democracy was more fundamental than anyone then imagined. Many groups in the country began organizing as parties; Yüan himself appeared to further the new way. But he had his own thoughts. He ordered his followers to enter the revolutionary units to undermine them, and simultaneously pushed for the establishment of a party of his own. There was on all sides a pathetic eagerness to live up to the formal expectations of the Western world. Tragically, this government was comic opera. Yüan began having skirmishes with the Council within a few months. The Republicans allowed the actual power to slip away from them while seeking to exercise the authority derived from a constitution which most citizens of the new Republic could not understand at all. In the summer of 1912 Sun Yat-sen's followers began to face a definitely hostile executive. The Council looked for redress but found that parliamentary tricks turned easily against it. The conservative members, supporting Yüan, walked out, and the Council lacked a quorum. In August, 1912, the old revolutionary organization of Sun Yat-sen, founded by his coordination of earlier secret societies, was transformed into a regular party, the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang devoted themselves to the development of genuine party government; looking upon the Republic as their own creation, they were less ready for compromise than Chinese usage might have required. This did not improve the position of Sun's adherents. Yüan countered by forming the Progressive Party (_Chinputang_). While both sides lost control over the people, the party system was not even important enough to amount to carpetbagging. The only power in the country, as doctrine and administration melted away, was the military.[4]