Jerusalem - The following political developments led up to the primaries in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party. November 2005 - Former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon splits away from the hardline Likud party and forms a new centrist party, Kadima. Sharon was frustrated with an ongoing rebellion within the Likud by hawks opposed to Israel's summer 2005 pullout from the Gaza Strip.
January 2006 - Olmert, then finance minister and Sharon's deputy, becomes acting prime minister when Sharon suffers a stroke.
March 2006 - Kadima headed by Olmert wins Israeli parliamentary elections, forms a coalition government.
July, August 2006 - Israel in 33-day war with Lebanon's radical Shiite Hezbollah movement. The war ends undecided without Israel achieving its stated goals, which included retrieving two abducted soldiers. Olmert's popularity plummets and never recovers.
May 2008 - Police announce they are investigating Olmert over suspicions that he illegally accepted at least tens of thousands of US dollars from a US businessman and fundraiser over a period of years before he was elected premier. Olmert is already being probed on other suspicions of corruption, but the latest accusations appear more certain to materialize into an indictment. Pressure on him to resign swells.
June 2008 - Olmert gives in to a demand by the Labour Party, his largest coalition partner, to have Kadima elect a new leader.
July 2008 - Olmert announces he will resign immediately after the Kadima primary. His successor will attempt to form a new government, but new elections by March 2009, a year early, are possible.
