Jerusalem - Israeli President Shimon Peres gave the green light Monday for the country to hold new elections, telling parliament that consultations he had held with political parties led him to conclude that no legislator had enough backing to form a coalition government.

The president had completed the consultations earlier Monday, a day after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni informed him that she was unable to form a government to replace that headed by Ehud Olmert, who resigned the premiership on September 21.

Under Israeli law, and despite Peres' formal announcement to a packed Knesset (parliament) at the opening of the chamber's winter session, a majority of lawmakers will have 21 days to present another candidate and if - as is likely - this does not happen, new elections will be held within 90 days or around February 10.

In a bid to speed up the process however and skip the 21-day waiting period, Livni's ruling Kadima party separately submitted a bill Monday to dissolve the parliament and hold the elections sooner.

Kadima caucus leader Yoel Hasson submitted the Knesset dispersal bill to the parliament's secretariat. A vote on it had yet to be scheduled.

Under Israeli law, the Knesset can be dissolved either by a bill, or by an announcement by the president to the parliament's speaker that his nominee was unable to form a government. Either way, the elections are expected by March. A year ahead of schedule, they will be the sixth general election in just 13 years in Israel, where the proportional representation system and the large number of political factions has often led to political instability.

The political impasse in Israel is likely to cast a shadow over the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and now makes it almost certain that the negotiators will be unable to meet their self- imposed deadline of a deal by the time President George W Bush leaves office early next year.

Livni has been heading the Israeli team in the talks, and it is uncertain how she will continue to be able to gel this with running an election campaign.

In his speech to the Knesset, Peres called on the politicians to conduct a "legitimate and honourable" political struggle "which is not dragged into verbal violence, which does not become internecine hatred."

Livni was tasked on September 22 by President Shimon Peres with forming a new government, a day after Olmert resigned to fight corruption allegations.

Olmert however told the Knesset Monday that in light of the failure to form a new government, he would remain as interim prime minister until the new elections.

The 50-year-old Livni, who was chosen to replace Olmert as the head of Kadima in September 17 primaries, recommended Sunday that Peres green light early elections, after the ultra-Orthodox Shas party decided against joining her prospective government.

Peres began marathon consultations with all Knesset factions Sunday evening. Granting up to 20 minutes to each, he completed meeting all 13 of them by noon Monday with all of them recommending new elections as soon as possible and indicating no wish to have another lawmaker make another attempt at forming a government.

The hardline Likud party was the first to reject Livni's offer to join a government of national unity. Without it, and without the 12- seat Shas party and another ultra-Orthodox party, she was unable to get a majority in the Knesset. Crushed by Kadima in the March 1996 elections, the Likud of former hawkish premier Benjamin Netanyahu hopes that polls from the last two years forecasting his doing well will be borne out.

Two opinion polls published Monday however predicted a narrow win by Kadima over the Likud, giving the centrist party 29-31 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, compared to 26-29 for the Likud.

The Labour Party, headed by another former prime minister, Ehud Barak, would win only 11 seats, according to both polls, while the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, whose refusal to join a Livni-led coalition precipitated the current political impasse, would win 8 seats, losing one third of its strength.

Kadima currently has 29 seats in the Knesset, the Likud 12, the Labour Party 19, and Shas 12.

The polls were published in the leading Ma'ariv and Yediot Ahronot dailies. Kadima's two-mandate lead over the Likud in the Ma'ariv poll, however, fell within its 4.5-per-cent margin of error. (dpa)