Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi resigned today following criticism of his stewardship as the province seeks independence from Serbia in UN-led negotiations.
Citing the need to preserve a coalition majority and the cooperation of Kosovo's Western backers, Mr Kosumi told reporters: "I find the correct and ethical action is to resign from the post of prime minister."
Mr Kosumi, 45, handed in his resignation to President Fatmir Sejdiu after word leaked that he no longer had the confidence of his own Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) party.
The AAK nominated former guerrilla commander Agim Ceku, 45, to succeed him, a choice Sejdiu is expected to endorse.
Mr Ceku's appointment could draw fire from Serbia, which has a warrant out for his arrest.
Mr Kosumi has been criticised for ineptness by other members of Kosovo's ruling ethnic Albanian coalition and Western mentor states shepherding the UN-run Serbian province through talks that could lead to its independence later this year.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan chastised the Kosumi government in a January report for not doing enough to meet democratic standards set by the UN for the creation of a just and multi-ethnic society.
Kosovo's UN governor, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said the move came "in recognition of many calls reaching the authorities here ... that we want to support Kosovo, but at the same time we want the leaders and the people to work very, very hard to earn that which they want to see in Kosovo."
Mr Ceku, a former Yugoslav army officer who also fought in Croatia's 1991-95 war for independence from Yugoslavia, now heads the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civil emergency unit set up to absorb former guerrillas of the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
He is seen as a political heavyweight, more in the mould of Mr Kosumi's predecessor Ramush Haradinaj, another former guerrilla commander who resigned a year ago to stand trial at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.