Stockwell Day's troubled leadership of the official Opposition came to an official end Wednesday.

The Canadian Alliance head announced his resignation in Ottawa. And before his leadership was even cold, the race to replace him was on in earnest.

Within hours, Diane Ablonczy, MP for Calgary-Nose Hill, launched her bid for the leadership. Last week, Stephen Harper, another MP from Alberta, said he will run, and an unofficial draft Grant Hill movement has been underway for some time, although Hill, the MP for Macleod, Alta. and the party's deputy leader, has said he won't announce his plans until next week.

As well, Day himself hinted Wednesday that he may take another run at the leadership. He publicly thanked his supporters and promised that he would not let them down. But he would not confirm a new leadership run, and added that decision won't be announced until January.

Day's resignation was no surprise: Last summer, in the midst of a particularly messy and public party insurrection against his leadership, Day promised to hold a leadership review ahead of schedule, and to step down as leader three months beforehand.

Day's star had begun to fall months earlier. Many Alliance MPs and supporters were badly disillusioned by the party's poor showing in the November, 2000 federal election.

Although it scored enough seats to form the official Opposition, the party won just two in Ontario, despite Day's pledge to boost the party's popularity east of the Manitoba border.

His credibility took another hit in April, when he suggested that a Quebec judge involved in the so-called Shawinigate investigation was in a conflict of interest.

The judge threatened to sue; Day's chief of staff resigned; and soon some of his own MPs were jostling for the exits, too, publicly questioning Day's competence and his leadership skills.

The floodgates didn't close until August, when Day agreed to a hold an early leadership election. By then, 13 of his 66 MPs had left, or been pushed from, the Alliance.

The leadership election will be held March 8, by mail-in ballot. In the meantime, MP John Reynolds made his debut in the House of Commons Wednesday as the Canadian Alliance's interim leader.