THE SNP's ruling NEC had agreed to a quick timetable for the contest to replace Nicola Sturgeon.
Nominations will close at noon on 24 February, with the ballot running between 13 and 27 March 2023. The winner will be announced, "as soon as the result has been determined and after the candidates have been advised."
SNP National Secretary Lorna Finn said the governing body had also agreed to postpone the special democracy conference due to be held in Edinburgh next month.
READ MORE: Kevin McKenna: My afternoon drinking with Nicola Sturgeon
Members were expected in the capital on March 19 to discuss Nicola Sturgeon's plans for a de facto referendum.
In a statement, Ms Finn said: “Nicola has been the outstanding politician of this generation. We are very fortunate that she will remain an SNP MSP and a leading campaigner for an independent Scotland.
“But the SNP is full of talented individuals - and they now have the opportunity to put themselves forward and our new leader will lead us into the final phase of Scotland’s journey towards independence."
READ MORE: SNP leadership contest hit by row over who gets to vote
On the decision to delay the conference, Ms Finn explained:“It would be wrong to have a newly elected leader tied to a key decision on how we deliver democracy in Scotland in the face of continued Westminster intransigence.
“Therefore, the party’s Special Democracy Conference, previously planned for Sunday March 19th, is postponed.
“SNP Members - the lifeblood of this party and movement - will be updated in due course on details of a rearranged event once the new party leader is in place.”
Earlier in the day, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn denied that the de facto strategy was dead. “What I think the party needs is to allow a new leader the space to set out their agenda. I think that’s only right and fair,” he told the BBC.
Mr Flynn accepted that the SNP’s strategy had faltered, but argued that this was because of the UK Government and the Supreme Court’s ruling that Holyrood cannot hold a vote without the consent of Westminster.
READ MORE: Humza Yousaf expected to stand for SNP leadership
Meanwhile, a supporter of Ms Sturgeon's plan warned that without using an election as a means of overcoming the “democratic roadblock”, the party risked spending the next five years talking about process.
One source told the Guardian, the party needed a leader who would “excite people."
The special conference was due to debate two possible ways forward. The first is that if a majority of voters back the SNP or other pro-independence party candidates at a general election, then “we will consider that a mandate to enter negotiations with the UK Government to secure independence”.
The second would treat a majority of votes as a fresh mandate for a second referendum. If that demand was once again refused by the UK Government, the SNP would then contest the subsequent 2026 Holyrood election as a “de facto referendum”.
In her speech on Wednesday, the First Minister signalled that her party should use her resignation to consider whether or not it should continue with this strategy.
She said she feared SNP members would back that process not because they believed it was the right option, but because opposing it would lead to questions over her future.
"By making my decision clear now, I free the SNP to choose the path it believes to be the right one," she said.
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