The corresponding decision was supported by 340 delegates present at the congress.
Prior to this, the congress accepted the resignation of the previous party leader, Serhiy Tihipko. Only 7 people voted against the decision.
Opening the congress, Tihipko thanked his fellow party members and asked them to support "his difficult decision" to resign. He justified this decision by the fact that the candidate the party supported in the presidential elections (Yanukovych) lost them.
Tihipko noted that part of the blame for this also lies with him. At the same time, he noted that the campaign staff worked publicly and set itself "a rather difficult goal of showing the candidate without official gloss."
"We started with a rating of 16%, and by the second round it had practically drawn even. This could not have been achieved by a shadow staff and political technologists. It was necessary to work openly and convince people."
Tihipko gave credit to Yanukovych for adopting some of his ideas. At the same time, he acknowledged that some of Yanukovych's overzealous supporters relied on administrative resources. He also criticized Yanukovych for not mobilizing his supporters after the second round as Yushchenko did, but instead waiting "for decisive steps from Kuchma."
"I did not believe in the forceful option, I never believed in it, but during this time we lost the initiative and momentum. And when I saw that we had lost the initiative and talk of separatism began, I made the decision to leave the staff," he noted.
Regarding his resignation from the post of National Bank head, Tihipko said he did not want to politicize this body, the majority of whose employees supported another candidate in the autumn, namely Viktor Yushchenko.
Tihipko expressed disappointment that the Labor Ukraine faction had disappeared in parliament, and also proposed that in the future it be formed exclusively on the basis of party membership.
During the congress, Mykola Knyazhytsky and deputies Volodymyr Sivkovych, Hennadiy Rudenko, and Volodymyr Demyokhin were elected as new party members.
Also expelled from the party were deputies Yedin, Chikal, Sharov, Hladkykh, Dashutin, Ioffe, Noshchenko, and former ministers Derkach and Neustroyev.
In turn, speaking before the congress, the newly elected party leader Valeriy Konovalyuk proposed creating an alternative Cabinet of Ministers to the current government — a "Labor Government."
He also stated that the party should develop an alternative five-year development program for Ukraine, as well as an alternative budget for 2006.
At the same time, Konovalyuk noted that "Labor Ukraine" "will not be exclusively in antagonism to the current government," but will act "on the basis of constructive expediency and social responsibility."