South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), is due to nominate a caretaker president on Monday to replace Thabo Mbeki.
Mr Mbeki formally resigned as president on S Africa's ANC says Mbeki must go ...
ANC leaders to discuss Mbeki role ... Sunday, at the request of the ANC.
But he has denied accusations of political interference in a corruption case against his rival, ANC leader Jacob Zuma.
Correspondents says it is not yet clear who the party will chose to be the interim president of the country.
The BBC's Peter Biles in Johannesburg says the party could nominate the parliamentary speaker, Baleka Mbete, but that the deputy leader of the country, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, is directly in line to take over from Mr Mbeki.
In a televised address on Sunday night, Mr Mbeki said he had handed a resignation letter to the speaker of the National Assembly.
He said he would leave his post as soon as a new president was chosen.
The ANC has since been at pains to say that it wants Mbeki loyalists to remain in their posts in the interests of stability, says our correspondent.
The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has said Mr Mbeki had been the victim of a power grab by Mr Zuma.
Party leader Helen Zille said it would a "miscarriage of justice if Zuma was to get off the hook due to a legal technicality".
Impassioned defence
Mr Mbeki's speech followed an emergency cabinet meeting. He is stepping down before his final term expires next year.
The move came days after a high court judge suggested that Mr Mbeki might have interfered in a corruption case against his rival, ANC leader Jacob Zuma.
But during his address, Mr Mbeki made an impassioned defence of his position.
There had been no attempt to meddle with the judicial process, he said. And Mr Mbeki dismissed any suggestion he had been trying to shape the judgement for his own political ends.
Mr Mbeki said he would remain a member of the ANC and respect its decisions. Correspondents say this was a clear signal that he was keen to make the transition as smooth as possible.
Mr Zuma is widely expected to succeed Mr Mbeki in scheduled elections next year.
The decision to call for Mr Mbeki's early resignation was taken at a meeting of the ANC's National Executive Committee.
The ANC's secretary general said the decision to seek Mr Mbeki's early departure as president had been taken for "stability and for a peaceful and prosperous South Africa".
This was not punishment for Mr Mbeki, Gwede Mantashe told reporters on Saturday, adding that the president would be given the chance to continue his role as mediator in Zimbabwe.
Political interference
Mr Mbeki fired Mr Zuma as deputy president in 2005 after his financial adviser was found guilty of soliciting a bribe on his behalf.
But Mr Zuma returned to the political stage to topple his rival as ANC leader in bitterly contested elections last year.
Earlier this month, a High Court judge dismissed corruption and other charges against Mr Zuma, saying there was evidence of political interference in the investigation.
In his ruling, the judge said it appeared that Mr Mbeki had colluded with prosecutors against Mr Zuma as part of the "titanic power struggle" within the ANC.
In his address on Sunday, Mr Mbeki strongly denied that he or his cabinet had ever interfered in the work of national prosecutors.
"Again I would like to state this categorically: that we have never done this and therefore never compromised the right of the national prosecuting authority to decide whom it wished to prosecute or not to prosecute," he said.
He said this also applied to the "painful matter" of corruption charges against Mr Zuma.
Mr Mbeki became leader of South Africa in 1999 and won a second term in 2004.
Perhaps his biggest policy success has been South Africa's rapid economic growth since the end of apartheid and the rise of a black middle class - but to the anger of many, wealth is more unevenly distributed than ever before.
He has failed to convince the trade unions and the poorest South Africans that the government has acted in their interest - providing space for Mr Zuma to mobilise a powerful constituency.
Domestically, his government's handling of the HIV/Aids crisis and failure to stem violent crime in the country also weakened his hand.
(BBC)
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