AKIPRESS.COM - President Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s fourth democratic head of state, resigned Wednesday amid an acrimonious battle for control of the nation and the governing party, the African National Congress, The Huffington Post reported.

He told South Africans during a late-night televised address that, although he disagreed with the decision by the ANC to remove him, he would leave “with immediate effect.”

It is an ignominious end to a presidency beset by charges of corruption, bad governance, opportunism, economic stagnation and criminality. When South Africa’s National Assembly convenes Thursday, it is expected to elect Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, a Nelson Mandela protégé, as head of state.

Zuma, disgraced, will depart the presidency nine years after he was elected. He now faces prosecution and is likely to be ostracized by a party that once reportedly aided and abetted his pillaging of the state but which will now do its best to distance itself from its former leader.