Has there ever been a leader of a sovereign state that has just quit?
Obviously leaders stand down all the time in situations where they have little choice: they are about to face an obviously losing election and/or don’t have the support of their party any more, or are ill. Or someone just points a gun in their face.
But what about just quitting while none of those things are happening and the leader is still apparently popular?
I guess suicides count, but not suicides to avoid being captured / publicly killed.
Edward VIII. Head of state, though a monarch rather than an elected official. And, I’m not sure he entirely fits the OP’s criterion of “still apparently popular”.
What exactly counts as leader? The guy who has the real power, or all the high-ranking people even if their office has less power than the other guy?
Christian Wulff just resigned as President of Germany, but he was under considerable pressure; however his predecessor, Horst Köhler, just resigned in the middle of his term for no good reasons other than being in a snit because the press criticzed him. Which is a) basically their job as long as they don’t sling mud (which they didn’t) and b) wasn’t exactly news, since he was in his second term and should’ve grown a thick skin by then.
To the public it came across like a 5-year-old quitting a game in tears because the other kids are “mean”.
Do only leaders of countries count, or leaders of counties/states (as subdividions), too? Governors and their equivalents?
Henry III of Poland voluntarily stepped down in order to rule France.
Various US presidents stepped down voluntarily.
Calvin Coolidge (famous for his “I do not choose to run for president in 1928” statement) easily could have been reelected, for instance.
Grant stepped down after two terms, but did show interest in running again four years later. Teddy Roosevelt also stepped down, only to try again.
Truman may be one of the few exceptions among presidents who had been elected to two terms. He was eligible (the 22nd Amendment had passed, but did not apply to him), but his popularity was very low at the end of his term.
Mahmoud Abbas was supposedly very close to quitting as leader of the Palestinian Authority a couple of years ago due to his frustration over the peace process, although it may have just been a pressuring tactic.
Charles V of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor, Netherlands, Mexico, Peru, the Phillipines, etc. etc.; worn out from the Protestant Reformation and the Turks and Henry VIII in cahoots with Francis I, abdicated to a monastery where he could stick a pole out his bedroom window and fish all day while laid up with gout. But that let the mosquitos in, and he only enjoyed a couple of years of retirement before dying of malaria.
Lyndon Johnson also refused to run for a second elected term. While the war was unpopular, his work on civil rights was historical and he probably could have won reelection. I think he was just tired of the bullshit.
Similarly, Lyndon Johnson dropped out of his 1968 re-election campaign, after a poor showing in New Hampshire, opposition to the Vietnam War, RFK’s entry into the race, and apparently his own concerns about his long-term health.
Menachem Begin resigned as Prime Minister of Israel in 1983, a year before the elections. He had been deeply disappointed in the failure of the the war in Lebanon and by the anti-war protests, and following his wife’s death, slipped into depression, eventually cutting himself off from everyone except his close family. His last official statement was “I can’t do this any more.”
Pope Celestine V stepped down. A few other Popes have done so, but Celestine was the only one not to do so under duress.
Washington’s decision to not run for a third term is widely known, but there isn’t really any reason several other Presidents couldn’t have run between Washington and Eisenhower.
