The congress elected the new political council, the party’s 60-member governing body. It also decided to leave the post of the party chairperson vacant: after losing Georgian citizenship, Mikheil Saakashvili, the party founder and ex-president, lost the party chairmanship as well. The congress comes just months after the 2016 Parliamentary Elections, where UNM garnered 27% of votes and a week after the departure of several top party officials.