The move was widely expected after Topolánek failed to engineer a recent vote of confidence for the ODS in Parliament.

President Václav Klaus accepted the resignation, but asked Topolánek to stay in power until a new Cabinet could be named, likely after the upcoming municipal and Senate elections Oct. 20-21.

Klaus praised Topolánek, whom he tapped to be prime minister in August. "This government has shown that it intends to continue moving forward and to maintain the status quo," Klaus said.

The status quo, of course, has been anything productive in recent months, after a general election in June delivered a lower house of Parliament split in half between the left and the right.

Topolánek, for his part, said the time his government spent running the country was a preparation for an early election, which the ODS wants to call in an effort to secure a stronger mandate to lead.

"Now we can only wish for a strong, capable government," Topolánek said. "The quickest way to such a government will be a new general election."

Topolánek's right-leaning Cabinet, appointed Sept. 4, had 30 days to gain support from a 200-member Chamber of Deputies.

By not moving to appoint a new prime minister, Klaus is trying to buy time, said Vladimír Prorok, a political analyst at the University of Economics in Prague. Klaus does not want to ask former Prime Minister Jiří Paroubek to try again to break the deadlock in Parliament.

"Klaus is hoping that if the Civic Democrats do well in the Senate election, it will weaken Paroubek's position," Prorok said.

The constitution doesn't stipulate whom the president can name prime minister or by when.

Paroubek, who would largely rely on the support of the communists for his left-leaning Cabinet, insists that he is capable of winning a vote of confidence in Parliament.