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The most powerful woman in Israeli politics and a former spy, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, is now a frontrunner for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's job after he announced his forthcoming resignation today.

Mr. Olmert announced today he would not participate in the Sept. 17 Kadima leadership race.

Polls show Ms. Livni with an advantage in the upcoming primary. If she were to replace Mr. Olmert, she would become Israel's second female prime minister after Golda Meir. She has already launched a campaign to replace him in September's leadership contest.

Last May, Ms. Livni called for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign, and the popular expectation was that she would announce her own resignation from cabinet as well.

When she didn't quit, Ms. Livni faced criticism that she lacked the mettle to lead the country.

"Livni proved that she was a good candidate for the chair of women's organizations, at best," columnist Ben Caspit wrote in the Maariv newspaper at the time. In the best-selling Yedioth Ahronoth, female reporter Sima Kadmon observed that "Livni lacked balls" and portrayed her as a "blabbermouth."

To Ms. Livni's friends and allies, it was proof that politics in Israel is still a male-dominated realm, whose masters don't take kindly to incursions by the other gender. While Israel had its first female prime minister, Ms. Meir, a decade before Britain had Margaret Thatcher, and nearly a quarter-century before Canada had Kim Campbell, there has never been another female political leader who has risen anywhere near the top.

Those who followed Ms. Meir into office were much like those who preceded her: men, always, and usually with extensive military backgrounds.

Enter Ms. Livni, who last May confirmed one of the worst-kept secrets in Israel: that she aspires to Mr. Olmert's job.

At last year's press conference, she heavily criticized Mr. Olmert over the findings of the Winograd Commission, which charged that the Prime Minister was guilty of "serious failings" during last summer's war in Lebanon.

During her nine years in politics, Ms. Livni has managed to maintain her competent and squeaky-clean public image, something most remarkable during the past two years as Mr. Olmert and the rest of his government seemed to slide from one scandal to another. Public opinion polls show the 50-year-old married mother of two is one of the most trusted politicians in the country.

"She's an unusual politician in Israel, unusual for being a woman and not making much of it. Unusual for being low-key, soft-toned, not aggressive. But she speaks her mind," said Fania Oz-Salzberger, a senior lecturer in history at the University of Haifa.

Most notably, Ms. Livni has also become one of the leading proponents of "disengagement" - the term politicians here use for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank after 40 years of military occupation.

Ms. Livni has impeccable nationalist credentials to go along with her perceived competence. Her father was a leader of the Irgun, the underground guerrilla group that fought to establish a Jewish state on what had been the British Mandate of Palestine. And while Ms. Livni doesn't have an extensive military track record to draw upon, she did spend four years in the 1980s in a classified job at Israel's spy agency, the Mossad. As Foreign Minister, she has developed a close friendship with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a key for any top Israeli diplomat.

But now that Ms. Livni is openly reached for the prime ministership, she is suddenly an object of scorn.

"The women in Israeli politics are very brave," said Marina Solodkin, a parliamentarian who was the first member of Kadima to openly call for Mr. Olmert's resignation. She said Ms. Livni's reception explains why there are only 17 women among the 120 legislators who make up Israel's parliament, the Knesset.

"Women's politics are not the same as men's politics," Ms. Solodkin said. "I don't think what Tzipi Livni did was part of traditional men's politics."

What Ms. Livni did was to continue sitting in government headed by a man she has openly said is unfit to lead. To some, that decision brands her as a political opportunist who lacked the courage to back up her convictions by resigning.

Ms. Livni's confidantes argue that she wasn't being cynical, just careful. They say she stayed on as Foreign Minister when she realized quitting cabinet might lead others to follow her, potentially toppling the government and triggering fresh elections. With former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party well ahead of Kadima in the polls, that wasn't a risk she was ready to take.

"She doesn't want the government to collapse," said Dror Gal, a lawyer and close personal friend who has been in regular contact with Ms. Livni during the political crisis. "The last thing the country needs now is elections."

Instead, Ms. Livni, who silently let Mr. Olmert take over the leadership of Kadima after his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, was suddenly felled by a massive stroke, wants to replace Mr. Olmert from within the party. She believes it's her turn.

To Ms. Solodkin, her call for Mr. Olmert's resignation was proof that Ms. Livni's less-brinksmanship style of "women's politics" resonates with many Israelis. "It's a new breed of politician," she said, referring to herself as much as to Ms. Livni.