Electing one of the trio who has ruled, one way or the other, for the last five years would most likely doom the nation to another five years of political stalemate, corruption and infighting. These three have shown themselves to be incapable of breaking out of winner-takes-all mindsets.

Before we go into our choice and reasoning, we want to make it clear that this endorsement solely represents the opinion of the editorial staff of the Kyiv Post. Our view is independent of publisher Mohammad Zahoor, who wants it made clear publicly that he is a foreign businessman who does not take sides with any politician in the presidential race. So any fault in logic is our own.

We don’t think Ukraine is blessed with many attractive candidates in the race, but one must be chosen, nonetheless. The vote on Jan. 17, therefore, represents a golden opportunity for Ukraine. We think the candidate chosen should be Sergiy Tigipko.

Despite serious reservations, we believe that Tigipko has demonstrated the pragmatism, foresight, experience and conciliatory skills that Ukraine needs to break out of its current political stalemate. We hope, however, that there is a second-round runoff involving Tigipko so that the nation can scrutinize him and a second challenger more closely.

We also think that Arseniy Yatseniuk, the former Verkhovna Rada speaker, and Anatoly Hrytsenko, the former defense minister, are relatively acceptable options. Both of them would bring new intellectual heft, vision and approaches to the presidency. Regrettably, however, they have run disappointing campaigns that exposed their shortcomings in rallying a nation. Most likely, they would serve the nation best as Cabinet-level appointees of the next president.

Here is what gives us pause about Tigipko. Like many of his opponents, he is also a product of the Soviet era as well as the corrupt post-Soviet era of ex-president Leonid Kuchma. He rubbed shoulders with greedy oligarchs, even helping them build one of Ukraine’s largest banks during the crony capitalist 1990s. He violated basic conflict of interest rules as the head of the National Bank of Ukraine while building up a personal banking fortune. Tigipko also has no clear team or power base in parliament to rely upon.

Most troubling, he is tainted by his role as campaign manager in the 2004 presidential election campaign of Yanukovych, the front-runner in the current election. To his credit, Tigipko resigned after the fraudulent second round. He now admits that vote fraud occurred, but insists that both sides were to blame and downplays the extent of falsification in favor of Yanukovych. Moreover, Tigipko has yet to come clean with what he knows about these horrible crimes and his possible involvement in them.

Will he help solve a long list of other major crimes that continue to haunt this country, such as the murder of opposition politicians and journalists, unfair privatizations, Yushchenko’s poisoning and dozens of others? This answer is also unclear.

Despite these reservations, we find enough to like about Tigipko to endorse him.

His straight talk during an effective campaign shows that he has a pragmatic understanding of the nation’s problems and has ideas for solving them. As a businessman, former banker and former vice premier – with a fortune easily in the hundreds of millions of dollars – we think he has enough understanding to improve government and the economy.

As a politician, he has shown an ability to work with people from all political camps. He served under three prime ministers in the 1990s and has advised Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Tigipko describes himself as a guy of compromises, a good trait in moderation and when principle is not at stake. The fact that he doesn’t elicit strong opposition from western or eastern Ukraine is a welcome advancement from the “divide-and-rule” style of the entrenched set of leaders.

The fact that all political sides have seen fit to employ him and seek his advice for more than a decade is encouraging. An endorsement for Tigipko, who has a shot at winning, is a gamble that gives hope of breaking up the three-way, five-year cat fight between two Victors and one Yulia.

We expect – but it is only a hope – that he would be a committed democrat as president and uphold the rights to free speech and give people the legal and constitutional powers they need to hold their elected officials accountable.

We also hope he creates a welcoming business climate for desperately needed foreign investment and that he replaces the current lawless environment with a rule-of-law society. To do so, the next president will have to tear down the existing police and courts structure and build a new one from scratch. No easy task, no matter who is elected, but it will take someone with the kind of strength and vitality that Tigipko has displayed.

Tigipko is the lesser of the 18 evils in this vote, especially if he is capable of resolving differences among warring factions and convincing the nation’s politicians to put Ukraine’s interests ahead of their own.