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Bob Rae is stepping down from the Liberal leadership race and has pledged to support his long-time friend Michael Ignatieff as the party's next chief.

Describing Mr. Ignatieff as a person of wisdom and generosity, Mr. Rae urged his supporters to embrace the former Harvard professor as the only remaining candidate in the race.

"He will make a great prime minister," Mr. Rae said.

Mr. Rae, a Liberal MP and former NDP premier of Ontario, made clear in an Ottawa news conference Tuesday that the national executive's plans for a quick consultation of party officials did not satisfy his hope for a leadership vote by all party members.

It was a remarkable turnaround for Mr. Rae, given that just a day earlier he was urging Liberals not to select a leader through back-door processes, but rather a leadership convention and public debates.

Mr. Rae said he has no doubt that Mr. Ignatieff has the most support among Liberal MPs and the party at large. "His leadership is entirely constitutional, legitimate and appropriate."

On Monday night, the party had forestalled efforts to immediately install Mr. Ignatieff as leader, setting up a wider consultation of party officials over the next week after protests from Mr. Rae.

With Stéphane Dion announcing he will step down as Liberal Leader before Parliament resumes, Mr. Rae and his supporters had sought to block a move to have MPs choose a successor at a meeting Wednesday, instead hoping to delay it until next month and give party members a say.

Late Monday, the party's national executive chose a middle option for selecting an interim leader by Dec. 17 — allowing the party's riding association presidents, club presidents, and defeated candidates to weigh in, in addition to Liberal MPs and senators.

It was a compromise between the leadership camps, but it fell short of the broad vote of party members that Mr. Rae had called for. The party executive's decision is intended to delay MPs from voting on a leader until next week, although the caucus is not bound to put off their own vote.

The third candidate in the Liberal leadership race, New Brunswick MP Dominic LeBlanc, pulled out Monday to support Mr. Ignatieff, arguing that circumstances require Liberals to rally behind the "consensus" choice as leader — tacitly pressuring Mr. Rae to follow suit.

"The ideal scenario for me is that the Liberal caucus is united behind Michael Ignatieff as the leader," Mr. LeBlanc said.

While the Liberal Party's constitution technically requires that the choice now is for an interim leader, not a permanent one, it is clear that whoever is chosen will almost certainly keep the job, with a scheduled leadership convention in May probably serving only to ratify it formally.

But Mr. Rae insisted that party members must have a say in the choice, and whoever was chosen by caucus would have an unfair advantage.

"I just happen to have a view that says it's better to have the party as a whole involved in finding a solution than it is to having a solution imposed from above," he said.

"No other democratic party would do it this way, and I think we have to think very carefully about finding the right process."

MPs who support Mr. Rae trooped out in front of television cameras to argue that message, knowing that if the caucus moves to decide the matter in its meeting tomorrow, Mr. Ignatieff will almost certainly emerge as leader.

"If we pick somebody now, it will have the effect almost of being a coronation," Liberal MP Hedy Fry told the CBC.

That, in effect, was what Mr. Ignatieff's team was preparing — a move to have the caucus of Liberal MPs and senators vote to select him tomorrow, and then have the choice ratified by the national executive.

In an e-mail to supporters yesterday, Mr. Ignatieff gave no signal that he was supporting a role for rank-and-file members before that choice, arguing that if he was chosen by the caucus and executive, his leadership would be "confirmed" at the party's May convention.

But many Liberals argue that the party's members must be given some kind of say now — led by Mr. Rae's supporters, but including some MPs who support Mr. Ignatieff. Mr. Rae has garnered the support of MP Gerard Kennedy, the fourth-place finisher from the 2006 leadership race, whose convention-floor backing helped propel Mr. Dion to victory.

The party's executive held a conference call Monday night to discuss precisely how, and when, the new leader will be chosen.

Mr. Rae's suggestion that the party speed up the leadership race through an electronic vote in January was rejected by members of the executive as a violation of the party's constitution, which requires that a leader be chosen at a convention by elected delegates.

The party's constitution does allow the executive to choose an interim leader, in consultation with the caucus, but finding a way to give party members a say, too, was part of the conference-call discussion.

One of the options to be considered by the national executive was a proposal to speed up the election of leadership-convention delegates, now slated for March 6 to 8, so they are chosen by January. That would effectively substitute as the first-ballot result of the convention, but it could be difficult to organize so quickly.

Other ideas include having the party's 308 riding presidents canvass members and vote on their behalf, possibly along with defeated candidates from the last election.

Mr. Ignatieff's advisers said Monday night they would accept a form of grassroots consultation, such as the vote by riding presidents and defeated candidates.

What is now clear is that the Liberal Party that a week ago planned to have Mr. Dion take office today in a coalition with the NDP is now set to replace him before the next survival test of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government in late January, with the coalition plan uncertain.

Mr. Dion, who faced mounting pressure to step down after a bungled video address to the country last Wednesday, issued a statement saying Mr. Harper's move to prorogue Parliament created a logical time for Liberals to review the way forward.

"There is a sense in the party, and certainly in the caucus, that given these new circumstances the new leader needs to be in place before the House resumes. I agree," the statement said.

Meanwhile, supporters of Mr. Ignatieff began wrestling with the thorny process of what to do about the coalition with the NDP and whether it should be maintained. One key Ignatieff backer said Mr. Ignatieff should use the coalition idea as a weapon to keep the Tories from engaging in bullying tactics.

"The coalition if necessary, but not necessarily the coalition," said the backer.

Several New Democrats pointed out yesterday that Mr. Ignatieff signed his name to the document supporting the coalition.

"I think it's something that will be difficult for anybody in the Liberal Party to want to climb down from," said New Democratic MP Charlie Angus.

NDP Leader Jack Layton issued a statement Monday saying he is looking forward to working with the next leader of the "Liberal-New Democrat coalition" on proposals for the economy.

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe, who had agreed to support a Liberal-NDP coalition for 18 months, praised Mr. Dion's willingness to put aside his own personal interests to allow the Liberals to choose a new leader, and said that change won't affect Bloc support for a coalition.

With reports from Jane Taber, Campbell Clark and Brian Laghi