Will Israeli Prime Minister Olmert resign?

OK...if Olmert leaves office as a result of political movements, not directly related to the scandal, how will that be resolved?

"resigns w/o being indicted" or "something else happens"

This is going to be difficult to resolve. Olmert has stated he WILL step down After the leadership race has selected a new leader which won't happen til mid Sept..so of course he will still be Prime Minister on Sept 1st....making the "BLUE" answer correct. However, if he resigns from office as he says he will in mid Sept following the election, and is NOT indicted before then, then the "RED" answer would ALSO be correct.

I'd love to bet on this one but the question's wording doesn't work for me.

As this is my question...it seems that unless something happens to Olmert, he will still be Prime Minister as of 9/1 . . . so as soon as September 1st passes, it should be settled for the LAST option....even though we know he's leaving, something could happen too allow the fourth option to be realized.

Should be reopened, since the fourth option is still viable....watch for Spitzers...both in question formulation and resolutions.......

@baybear..your first comment raised doubts on how this will settle. as of today theres 2 winning options. now you want it left open to see if 4th option comes to pass. your a fine member of HD and make lots of questions. you always present your case in a well spoken manner. no disrespect imho your going overboard this time. from my boy destry...2.3.1 - Unless specified otherwise, a question asking when a public figure will resign will be settled on the date the figure announces their intention to resign rather than the date the resignation becomes effective (the Spitzer clause)
sounds to like spitzer votes for red.

@ dieseldog (and others) -- just "FYI"

It's notable to note ;-) that the "Spitzer Clause" does not, in my view, apply to the "other" Olmert resignation question: <http://www.hubdub.com/m9071/When_will_outgoing_Israeli_Prime_Minister_Ehud_Olmert_Officially_leave_office>

The background of the "other" market is specific: "Therefore, this question asks, WHEN will Olmert officially leave office? "

The official Spitzer rule states:

"Unless specified otherwise, a question asking when a public figure will resign will be settled on the date the figure announces their intention to resign rather than the date the resignation becomes effective (the Spitzer clause)"

In this case, the question clearly is, I believe, "specified otherwise".

So the questions are should this market settle now, and if so, which option.

If the Category Editor decides to settle this now, the option, "Olmert officially leaves office: Sept/Oct 2008" would appear to be the winning prediction.

From the BBC:

"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced he will stand down two months from now, saying that a corruption case involving him is hurting his family.

"Vowing to prove his innocence, he told reporters he would leave as soon as his Kadima party chooses a new leader at its internal election on 17 September. "

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7533855.stm>

What I don't know is Israeli politics. Again, the question asks "WHEN will Olmert officially leave office? "

If the election takes place on September 17th, -- when does Olmet OFFICIALLY leave office? (Is it at all similar to the US where there's a couple of months between the election and inauguration? -- or more like some other countries where the change happens almost immediately?

Are there other things involved with the election that could change the date -- "run-off elections", things like that (I have no clue -- except I have learned that that the September election is a "primary" ... so it may be that Olmert is likely to be OFFICIALLY in office for some period of time after the primary...

I'd be interested to know what lucidstates thinks about this.

One of the problems is that this market had options that weren't mutually exclusive of each other in the beginning. Now that circumstances have been created that make more than one option a winning prediction, it is only reasonable to void the market and not penalize or reward anyone.

@newswrangler..i agree the other question is totally differnt than this one. imho spitzer applies to this one. again no disrespect bayobear. have a nice day.

@ dieseldog -- I agree that the Spitzer clause applies to this question.

Trying to parse between Option 1 and Option 3 may prove difficult.

That said, Option 1 does have the term "resign" in it ....and if one applied Spitzer (resignation is day of announcement, not the day it actually occurs) to this, than it would seem Option #1 would prevail.

Option #3 is made moot by the application of the "Spitzer Clause". Said differently, "September" is no longer 'in play', as the only date that matters is the "date of announcement".

Disclosure: I have no predictions, past or present, in this market.

Here is how convulated it has become.
Option 1 Olmert resigns from office w/o being indicted could be considered accurate if between the date he announced and time he officially is resigned there are no indictments against him. If there were some then this option would be a winning one.
Option 2 Olmert is indicted and resigns from office this option seems im possible to be correct since the resignation happened before an official indictment.
Option 3 Olmert is still prime minister on Sept 1st while technically true if he was do die in office he would be prime minister until a special election could take place or another person was given temporary authority.
Option 4 Olmert dies or something else happens this could occur on Sept 1st him being killed, so then Options 3 and 4 are valid. Or if they hold the election earlier lets say results are known on sept 1st, then he could move his resignation date to that date and not be prime minister on Sept 1st (at least not on all of it).
When a question has options that are no longer mutually exclusive, the common sense thing to do is void. No winners, no losers.
The other market asking about his official leaving date is much easier to deal with.

@destry...first i have no money in the market. the spitzer rule was taylor made for this case. when he annouced he's resigning all other options are no longer valid. no waiting to see what else might or might not happen..settles on day they release the statement. if we let all options run on long term markets we'll have a bunch of suspended questions just sitting there, or people making bets on things where the outcome is knowin. i can't hang with you whipper snappers, i'm going nite nite. have a nice day.

@ destry -- you wrote:

"Here is how convulated it has become.
Option 1 Olmert resigns from office w/o being indicted could be considered accurate if between the date he announced ..." snip

It is completely non-convoluted. Applying the Spitzer Clause -- created specifically for this situation -- means that nothing after the date of resignation has any bearing on the outcome.

He has resigned. It is official. In my view, the Spitzer Clause was designed to prevent settlements where users try to convolute the settlement.

Typed too fast... above should be "nothing after the date of announcement has any bearing on the outcome."

I agree with last few comments.

the "Spitzer Clause" applies. Olmert has resigned.

Hello World. I'm the new "World" Category Editor. I start tomorrow (August 1). Lucky me, eh? A Spitzer-type question on day one!

The question is clearly a mess. Looking it over, it seems a lot more tricky than the original Spitzer. I am very tempted to void it because the options are not clearly discrete (that is, they overlap). As an example, clearly he can announce his resignation before Sept 1 but still be PM on Sept 1. In the future, I will be looking for problem questions like this when they are first created (and will fix or void them), and all your assistance in finding these problems will be appreciated.

I can also see that instead of voiding I might in the circumstances settle two of the options ("resigns no indictment" AND (possibly) "still PM" if it's clear that we is or will be on Sept 1.).

So, since I'm just starting, and also don't have strong leanings either way on this question, I'm open to your thoughts (please keep them brief). Best to post a comment here, but you can also flag this question or email me at patrick@hubdub.com

Right. After some thought, here's my take on this question.

If it was a new question, at the least I would edit the third option to read "Olmert has not resigned by Sept 1". But since people have wagered on "still PM", which means something quite different, I can't do that.

The first two options are a problem, because the question does not make clear whether the order of resignation and indictment matters or not. Imagine if the question read "What will Olmert status be on Sept 1?" and the options were 1. resigned but not indicted, 2. both resigned and indicted, 3. not resigned. This question would be straightforward to settle..

But this question as it is, is not straightforward to settle. It reminds me of those questions where a few options are given and then there's an option to combine 2 or more previous options and finally a "none of the above" option. Those questions are constructed so that 2 or more options can be true, but at settlement only one is true. This question does not do that, and so it really matters if the various options overlap. They do, which makes it impossible (or at least arbitrary) to settle on just one correct answer.

Based on the above, I have decided to follow Destry's thinking on this question, and void it.