He may announce his resignation, thereby setting off a 21-day period during which Mr. Katsav can seek alternative government coalitions consisting of at least a 61-seat majority in Knesset. Should this fail, then elections will follow 90 days following the 21-day period.

The second option, Sharon may request from the president that he dissolve the Knesset and then is left with a similar 21-day option to reestablish a new coalition. Should that fail, the 90-day election timer beings counting down.

In either scenario, elections will take place within a maximum of 110 days.

Israeli politics are about to get interesting. I don't know enough about the political layout to give any useful commentary about what's going on.. But from what I've been able to gather, Sharon is ditching the right-wingers and attempting to create a centrist party. This can only be a good thing as far as the Palestine situation is concerned.