Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló said late Wednesday he will resign Aug. 2 after nearly two weeks of furious protests and political upheaval touched off by a leak of crude and insulting chat messages between him and his top advisers.

Demonstrators had filled the streets outside Rosselló’s official residence throughout Wednesday evening and night, awaiting an address he had pledged to make at 5 p.m. The final announcement, however, did not come until almost midnight, with a Facebook post.

The flag-waving, chanting protesters erupted in cheers at the news.

Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have been outraged by the online chats between Rosselló and his advisers and have protested for nearly two weeks demanding his resignation.

In the chat, participants discussed the awarding of government contracts in ways that some observers called potentially illegal. They also insulted women and mocked constituents, including victims of Hurricane Maria. Rosselló called a female politician a ‘‘whore,’’ referred to another as a ‘‘daughter of a bitch,’’ and made fun of an obese man with whom he posed in a photo.

On Tuesday, officials announced that a Puerto Rico judge had issued search warrants for the cellphones of government officials involved in the chat as part of an investigation. One of the search warrants said officials used the chat to transmit official and confidential information to private citizens in potential violation of ethics laws.

More than a dozen government officials have resigned since the chat was leaked earlier this month, including Rosselló confidant and chief of staff Ricardo Llerandi, former secretary of state Luis Rivera Marín and former chief financial officer Christian Sobrino, who also held five other positions.

A report issued Wednesday by a special committee given the task of investigating whether legislators could proceed with an impeachment process against Rosselló recommended that Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives do so. It is unclear if there are enough votes to do so.

In line to succeed Rosselló is Wanda Vázquez, the secretary of justice.

But Vázquez has a number of powerful political opponents, complicating any succession. She has been the island’s secretary of justice, the equivalent of a state attorney general, since January 2017. She is a member of the New Progressive Party, like Rosselló, who appointed her. She worked as an attorney specializing in domestic and sexual violence before her appointment to the top post at the commonwealth’s Department of Justice. She was appointed to lead the office of women’s affairs in 2010.

Some women’s groups opposed Vázquez during her seven years as the head of the island’s women’s affairs office. She was supposed to serve a 10-year term, but she left early to become secretary of justice.

“A lot of feminist groups were very critical of Wanda Vázquez,’’ said Saadi Rosado of the Feminist Collective, an advocacy group. “She failed to address gender violence issues and was another piece of government bureaucracy.’’

Her relationship with the legislative branch is fraught, to say the least. Her time as secretary of justice has been punctuated by criticism that she has dragged her feet on investigating controversies involving members of her own party. She has clashed especially with Thomas Rivera Schatz, the president of the Senate. Vázquez came under intense legal scrutiny herself last year amid ethical complaints filed by the Office of the Independent Special Prosecutor. In November, Vázquez faced allegations that she had improperly intervened on behalf of her daughter and son-in-law in a housing dispute.

In fact, a new term was trending on Twitter in Puerto Rico on Wednesday, echoing protesters’ demands for Rosselló to resign: #WandaRenuncia.

Material from the Associated Press and New York Times was used in this report.