Canadian Prime Minister Mr Jean Chretien today bowed to pressure from his ruling Liberal Party, and announced unexpectedly that he would quit in February 2004, a month after his 70th birthday.
Mr Chretien, facing an increasingly fractious party, said he hoped the surprise decision would help heal a rift between his supporters and those of arch-rival Mr Paul Martin, his former finance minister.
Mr Chretien, now 68, won power in 1993 and led the Liberals to three consecutive federal election victories, the last of them in November 2000.
But his popularity has been tumbling in recent opinion polls, and his persistent refusal to make clear whether he would seek a fourth term had stoked already high tensions with the impatient Martin camp.
Mr Chretien sacked Mr Martin in early June for refusing to shut down an unofficial leadership campaign, triggering a power struggle which paralysed the government and threatened to tear the party in two.
The Liberals' main political opposition, on the right, is split into two parties, giving the governing party a lead of more than 20 percentage points in opinion polls.