Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – The Golkar Party's provincial executive board in North Sumatra has reshuffled its membership at the regent and municipal levels following mass resignations.

The former members announced their resignation over the weekend to ally with the newly established Nasdem Party. The reshuffled executives include Golkar's North Padang Lawas secretary, Ismail Hasibuan.

The Golkar provincial executive board's deputy secretary, Mulkan Ritonga, said the move to reshuffle was necessary to avoid a party leadership vacuum in the respective regions. "A leadership vacuum must never happen in Golkar," Ritonga told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Ritonga, who is also secretary of the party's faction at the provincial legislative council, said that firm action would be applied to Golkar councilors deciding to join the Nasdem Party. So far, he said, no councilor in North Sumatra had declared resignation for another party.

A number of party leaders at the provincial level officially resigned over the weekend to join the Nasdem Party.

The revelation came on Saturday by then chairman of Golkar's North Sumatra executive board, Ali Umri, accompanied by Golkar figures from Medan, Binjai, Langkat, Asahan and Labuhan Batu.

Ali said the resignations were merely because they wanted to follow Nasdem Party founder Surya Paloh, who had resigned from Golkar as chairman of the central advisory board.

"Those who have resigned recently from Golkar are Surya Paloh's allies. Because he has resigned from Golkar, we are following his lead," Ali told reporters at his residence.

Ali, also the former mayor of Binjai, said that the resignations were also expressions of their disappointment with Golkar. Ali said there were hundreds of Golkar members resigning from the party's North Sumatra branch, spread across 7,000 subdistricts in 416 districts.

Separately, the Golkar Party's North Sumatra executive board secretary, Hardi Muliono, said there were no problems with the resignation of some party figures because most were no longer party executives.

Hardi was confident the moves would not influence votes and the party would win the 2014 election. "We respect their decision to resign from Golkar, but they are not many, so they will not affect the next election," Hardi said.