Tel Aviv  - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday evening that his decision to resign after his party elects a new leader had been painful, but added he felt "no bitterness."

"I decided to resign, with pain, not with pleasure, I must say, really with pain," a tired-looking, casually clad Olmert told a gathering of students in Israel's southern Negev desert.

"I know that there are still many things to do, that I wanted to do, that I believe I could have done. I have no bitterness. I have no anger," he said.

The some 74,000 members of the Israeli premier's ruling Kadima party were choosing a new leader Wednesday.

Olmert, plagued by a series of corruption allegations, has said he will resign to allow the winner to form a new coalition government.

He could, however, stay on at the head of an transitional government in the interim period. (dpa)