Ehud Olmert's political opponents will not be able to accuse him, as they did Ariel Sharon, of concealing his intentions before being elected prime minister of Israel.
In recent weeks, Mr Olmert has made it clear that, if elected, he plans to pull back from most of the West Bank in the next four years, whether or not Israel comes to an agreement with the Palestinians.
This is the main issue, virtually the only one, that Israelis will be voting on tomorrow.
In choosing frankness over ambiguity, Mr Olmert is seeking to avoid the kind of political turmoil created by Mr Sharon when he evacuated Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip, even though he had given no hint of such intentions when he ran for office as a tough right-winger.
The country hung at the edge of civil strife last year as incensed settlers and their supporters demonstrated violently against what they termed a massive deception and demanded, futilely, that Mr Sharon's plan be submitted to a national referendum.
Acting Prime Minister Olmert said last week that he wanted the public to fully understand beforehand the implications of voting for him. 'Anyone who calls the elections a referendum [on the pullback] is right,' he said. 'That's what it is.'
Mr Olmert reportedly intends to pull Israeli settlements out of 90 per cent or more of the West Bank and to establish a new border with the Palestinian Authority along the line of the barrier now being built parallel to, or on, the pre-Six Day War border. About 70,000 settlers would be evacuated, almost 10 times as many as were evacuated from the Gaza Strip.
