JERUSALEM—A date for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's resignation has yet to be set though the leader will tell his cabinet at its weekly meeting on Sunday that he is stepping down, his spokesman said.
"He will announce in the cabinet that he, as prime minister, will be resigning," the spokesman, Mark Regev, said on Saturday. "We have to schedule a meeting with (Israeli President Shimon) Peres for the formal resignation."
When Olmert, facing possible indictment for corruption, has handed in his resignation, Peres, whose powers as head of state are largely symbolic, is expected to ask Olmert's designated successor Tzipi Livni to form a government.
Beyond that, officials said they were unaware of the precise schedule for a process that will see Olmert continue as premier in a caretaker capacity until a new governing coalition can be formed -- possibly many weeks away.
Livni, who hopes to become Israel's first woman leader since Golda Meir in the 1970s, narrowly won a hard-fought election on Wednesday to succeed Olmert as leader of the Kadima party. She faces a struggle to heal divisions within her own movement and to persuade smaller parties to join her in a new government.
Peres can by law take 14 days to ask Livni, the foreign minister, to form a government and is likely to consult other party leaders. Peres flies out to New York on Monday to attend U.N. meetings, his office said.
Livni, a 50-year-old lawyer and one-time Mossad agent, would have six weeks to try to secure a new coalition deal—with Ehud Barak's Labor on the left and Jewish religious party Shas on the right, as well as with several smaller groups.
Should she fail—and Kadima has only a quarter of the seats in the Knesset—right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu could get his wish for an early parliamentary election, which polls indicate his Likud party would win.
'Mrs. Clean'
Olmert denies wrongdoing but bowed to pressure to quit after a U.S. businessman told prosecutors he had handed Olmert cash stuffed in envelopes to fund political campaigns before he succeeded Ariel Sharon as prime minister in 2006. Police are also investigating Olmert for fraud over expense claims.
He has said he will recommend Livni. Her supporters have dubbed her "Mrs. Clean" and say she can put an end to years of corruption scandals that some say pose a threat to the state.
However, she first must hold Kadima together in the face of disillusionment among followers of Shaul Mofaz, the former general who ran her so close in the party ballot. Mofaz, whose aides complained of voting irregularities, stayed away from a Kadima meeting on Friday and is taking "time out" from politics.
Until Livni forms a government, Olmert plans to stay on as caretaker prime minister and pursue U.S.-sponsored peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Abbas has welcomed the rise of Livni, who has been the chief negotiator with the Palestinians for the past year. But few on either side hold out much hope of the deal on establishing a Palestinian state which U.S. President George W. Bush has set as his goal before he leaves the White House in January.
