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South African President Thabo Mbeki announced his resignation on Sunday.
The resignation will be effective from a date to be decided by South Africa's parliament, Mbeki said in a television speech.
The decision came after the top-level National Executive Committee of African National Congress (ANC) decided on Saturday to recall Mbeki before the end of his term next year.
Also in the speech, Mbeki denied the accusation that his government had interfered with the National Prosecution Authority. "We have never compromised the right of the National Prosecution Authority to prosecute or not to prosecute," he said.
Mbeki agreed to stand down on Saturday.
According to a statement from the presidency, Mbeki would "step down after all constitutional requirements have been met."
Addressing the media at the Esselen Park conference centre in Kempton Park on the East Rand, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said Mbeki's reaction to the news was "normal".
"He didn't display shock or any depression. He welcomed the news and agreed that he is going to participate (in the parliamentary process). If I said he was excited I would be exaggerating."
Mantashe said the decision was taken "as an effort to heal and unite the African National Congress."
He said the decision was a political way to deal with the implications of Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Chris Nicholson's ruling that Mbeki may have been involved in a political conspiracy against the ruling party's leader Jacob Zuma.
"The biggest worry of the ANC had been the question of a reversal of the closure of the chapter (that the Nicholson judgment seemed to have promised)."
The National Prosecuting Authority's decision to appeal the judgment had become a worry, said Mantashe. "If pursued it will continue to be a point of division for the ANC."
Earlier on Saturday, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka's spokesman Denzel Taylor said that Mlambo-Ngcuka would hand in her resignation depending on whether Mbeki hands in his resignation.
Mbeki has lost a power struggle against ANC leader Zuma and has come under pressure to quit following the judge's ruling last week that Mbeki was instrumental in Zuma being charged with corruption, news agencies reported.
Mbeki became President in 1999 and was due to leave office in April, 2009. He had led the ANC for about a decade until last year when he was defeated by Zuma.