What Will Dalai Lama's Resignation Mean for Tibetans?

The 14th Dalai Lama plans to step down as the political leader of the Tibetan people -- a move designed to strengthen the Tibetan government, he said.

He will remain the spiritual leader of Tibetans and hopes to ultimately decide how his successor is chosen. Chinese authorities, however, have threatened to decide who will one day take over from him.

The 75-year-old Nobel laureate said in a speech today in Dharamsala, India, that his decision was timed to coincide with the elections next week to choose a new prime minister for the Tibetan government in exile.

"My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility," he said, according to a prepared text of his speech. "It is to benefit Tibetans in the long run."

His announcement came on the anniversary of the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule that led to his dramatic escape through the Himalayas into India.

Tibetan scholars emphasized that the Dalai Lama would still be considered the overall leader of Tibetans and their cause, which he has worked for during the past 50 years of his exile.

Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet told AOL News today that the Dalai Lama, who has become a global superstar as well as spiritual and temporal leader of Tibetans, has long hoped to reduce his people's dependence on him.

"By willingly divesting himself of a political role, he is cutting a key tie," Saunders said. "It's a significant acknowledgment of the resilience and spirit of the Tibetan people, and it will ensure that the new prime minister will have more responsibility and recognition."

Among the leading candidates to be prime minister is Lobsang Sangay, a Tibetan legal scholar currently at Harvard, who is especially popular among young Tibetans, Saunders said.

The Dalai Lama had already called himself "semiretired" after the first direct election in 2001 of a prime minister as the formal head of the exiled government.

"As early as the 1960s, I have repeatedly stressed that Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power," he said today.

He acknowledged in his speech that many Tibetans had asked him to continue as political leader, but asked that they understand his decision.

"We cannot live without him. He is like a guiding light and our mother," said Tsrindiki Joraden, 68, a Tibetan exile in Delhi, India, at a protest to mark the failed uprising, Agence France-Presse reported.

Tim Johnson, author of the "Tragedy in Crimson: How the Dalai Lama Conquered the World but Lost the Battle With China," told The New York Times that the Dalai Lama's decision is aimed at giving more credibility to whomever is elected.

The reaction from Beijing was not as sympathetic.

"We think these are his tricks to deceive the international community," said Jiang Yu, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

Given the Dalai Lama's age, a still unresolved question that will affect Tibetan politics involves his successor. The Chinese have inserted themselves into the debate.

The Dalai Lama said he might choose his successor before he dies, a deviation from the historic practice of senior lamas identifying his reincarnation after his death, the Times said.

Chinese leaders, who are officially atheist, have claimed authority to choose his reincarnation -- a stance disputed by the chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, who was appointed by China.

"We must respect the historical institutions and religious rituals of Tibetan Buddhism," the chairman, Padma Choling, told reporters on Monday while attending the annual session of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

"I am afraid it is not up to anyone whether to abolish the reincarnation institution or not," he said. "Tibetan Buddhism has a history of more than 1,000 years, and the reincarnation institutions of the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama have been carried on for several hundred years."