Imagine forming a political coalition, taking
to the streets to spark this massive nationwide
revolution, completely overtuning the establishment.
And then the very moment you actually win, you
just immediately break up your alliance. Right.
It sounds totally made up. Exactly. I mean, if
you saw that in a movie, you'd think the scriptwriter
just got bored halfway through a political thriller.
Yeah, they just didn't know how to end the third
act. Right. But today we are looking at a real
political supergroup that did exactly that. from
formation to dissolution in under two years.
So welcome to the deep dive. Glad to be here.
Today we are examining a single really detailed
historical source that maps out the Way Out Alliance,
which is also known as the Yelk Dashing. It was
a short -lived but massively impactful coalition
in modern Armenian history. It really is an absolutely
perfect case study in, you know, political momentum
because the source material we have gives us
the complete lightning -fast life cycle of this
coalition. It's like having a friend who reads
the political spark notes for you but actually
makes the drama interesting. Exactly. We are
going to explore how they pulled this off, what
it teaches us about political strategy, and why
victory sometimes destroys the very coalitions
that made it possible in the first place. But
before we get into the mechanics of all that,
we do need to establish a quick ground rule based
on the text we're working with. Let's set the
table. Right. This is important. So the source
material explicitly cites terms like anti -Russian
sentiment, pro -Europeanism, and Armenian civic
nationalism. as the foundational bedrock of this
alliance's platform. So I want to be entirely
clear with you, the listener. We are strictly
analyzing these positions as they exist in the
historical record. We are definitely not taking
sides here. Exactly. We are not endorsing any
geopolitical stance, whether that points east,
west, or anywhere in between. Our focus is purely
analytical. We're just, you know, looking under
the hood of this political engine to see how
it ran so fast and why it ultimately dismantled
itself. I'm really glad we put a pin in that,
because our goal here is to dissect the strategy,
not to debate the ideology. Because, I mean,
If you were looking at this alliance on paper
back in 2016, you would probably think it was
a massive gamble. Oh, absolutely. So let's go
back to the origin story. How does a coalition
that ultimately reshapes a country's trajectory
actually get built? I mean, they didn't just
spontaneously generate out of thin air. Far from
it. The Way Out Alliance officially came into
existence on December 12, 2016. And... To really
understand its DNA, you have to look at the three
distinct political parties that decided to merge
their efforts. OK. It was fundamentally a liberal
political alliance. So first, you had civil contract,
which was led by a rising political figure named
Nikol Pashinyan. Right. Then you had bright Armenia
led by Edmund Marukian. Got it. And finally,
rounding out the trio, you had the Hannah Rapatuchin
party, and they were led by Aram Sargsan. OK,
let's unpack the weight of those names for a
second. because specifically, Aram Sargsyan,
the text notes, he was a former prime minister
of Armenia. It was, yeah. So if we look at this
like a political supergroup, you know, taking
lead singers from different bands and putting
them on one stage, bringing in a former prime
minister. is a massive strategic play. It's huge.
It takes a group of rising insurgent politicians
and just instantly gives them legacy credibility.
Exactly. It signals to the voters that this isn't
just some fringe protest movement. There is actual
executive experience in the room. Right. They've
actually governed before. That is a crucial dynamic
to highlight. You blend that insurgent energy
with establishment weight. You know, having famous
leaders sharing a stage is tough if they don't
actually agree on the set list. Yep. What was
the actual ideological genre they all agreed
to play? Well, according to the source, the glue
holding them together was liberalism combined
with a very strong commitment to Armenian civic
nationalism and pro -Europeanism. OK. And this
was especially pronounced for bright Armenia
and Henrapetudian. Let me pause you right there
because civic nationalism is one of those really
dense terms that gets thrown around in political
science textbooks. But we need to know what it
actually meant for this specific. Right, it can
mean a lot of things. Yeah. How does civic nationalism
function as an actual political platform? In
a broad analytical sense, civic nationalism focuses
on shared citizenship, political values, and
loyalty to the state's institutions, rather than
defining the nation strictly by ethnic, ancestral,
or cultural lines. When you combine that with
their explicitly stated liberalism, you are basically
looking at a platform focused heavily on modernizing
state institutions. Shrinking democratic frameworks,
that sort of thing. Exactly. And aligning the
country's legal and economic systems with Western
models, it's really about building a robust modern
state apparatus. Right. But a theoretical philosophy
about modernizing the state doesn't just win
elections on its own. No, definitely not. You
need a target. You need an enemy or at least
a very clear grievance to rally voters around.
And boy, their target was massive. What's fascinating
here is how specifically targeted their foreign
policy goals were right out of the gate. What
was the specific grievance? Their unifying grievance
was Armenia's foreign relations strategy, specifically
regarding the Eurasian Economic Union, or EAEU.
The alliance stated unequivocally that Armenia's
decision to join the EAEU was a mistake. They
argued it was having a demonstrably negative
impact on the country's development. I want to
dig into the mechanics of that, because saying
we made a mistake is one thing, but did they
have a fully formed alternative? They did, yeah.
What was their actual pitch to the voters regarding
how to fix this perceived error? They really
weren't just a party of no. They proposed a highly
detailed alternative roadmap. Which was? The
alliance wanted to renegotiate with the European
Union to sign an association agreement, along
with a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement,
which is often referred to as a DCFTA. Which
is a massive pivot. Let's break down the difference
there, because this is really the core of their
platform. It is. What does a deep and comprehensive
free trade agreement actually offer? that made
them willing to stake their entire political
identity on it. Well, it represents a fundamental
shift in a country's economic and political compass.
How so? So, the EAEU implies closer economic.
customs and regulatory integration with Russia
and its allied regional partners, right? Right.
A DCFTA with the European Union, on the other
hand, isn't just about lowering tariffs on goods.
It's deeper than that. Exactly. The deep and
comprehensive part means aligning your domestic
regulations, your market standards, and often
even your judicial and institutional frameworks
with European standards. Oh, wow. So it's a structural
overhaul. It is. It opens up completely different
trade corridors and usually requires significant
internal forms just to meet EU requirements.
So the Way Out Alliance was effectively arguing
that integrating with European markets was the
only viable path for the country's economic future.
OK, so they formed a super group. They blended
insurgent energy with executive experience, and
they built a highly specific technical platform
focused on European economic integration. Right.
It sounds great in a manifesto, but... You know,
having a strong manifesto and famous leaders
is great on paper, but the real test is the ballot
box. A manifesto means nothing if voters don't
buy it. Absolutely true. To see if this actually
resonated, we have to look at their first real
stress test, which was the parliamentary elections
on April. to 2017. Right. Less than four months
after officially forming, they stepped into the
national arena. That's incredibly fast. It is.
And for this specific electoral push, Edmund
Marukian, the leader of Bright Armenia, served
as the leader of the alliance. I actually have
the numbers from the source right here, and they
are fascinating. Let's hear them. In that April
2017 election, the way out alliance secured one
hundred and twenty two thousand forty nine votes.
OK. That translates to seven point seven eight
percent of the national vote. And that's seven
point seven. earned them exactly nine seats out
of 105 in the National Assembly. So they successfully
go from a piece of paper to a recognized parliamentary
opposition force in just a few months. Which
is a really significant achievement for a brand
new coalition. It gives them a foothold. Okay,
here's where it gets really interesting. Let
me push back on that idea of a foothold. Sure.
Because nine seats out of 105 is less than 10
% of the legislative body. It is a tiny minority,
yeah. In any parliamentary system, if you control
less than 10 % of the room, you cannot pass laws.
You literally cannot block laws if the majority
is unified. That's true. So how does a newly
formed coalition, running on a highly specific
pro -European platform, actually wield any real
influence with under 8 % of the vote? I mean,
how do you maintain the morale of a supergroup
when you are vastly outnumbered in the room where
it happens? That is the ultimate challenge of
minority opposition politics, isn't it? Yeah.
Now, the source doesn't detail their daily legislative
maneuvers, but politically speaking, when you
only have nine seats, you don't use the parliament
as a legislative tool. What do you use it as?
Use it as a megaphone. You leverage your seats
on committees to access documents and ask really
difficult questions. You use your guaranteed
speaking time on the assembly floor to force
debates that, you know, get broadcast on the
evening news. You're playing to the cameras.
Exactly. You position yourself as the most articulate,
relentless watchdog in the room. A tiny block
can wield outsized influence if they are disciplined
and constantly forcing the majority to defend
its actions publicly. That makes a lot of sense.
You aren't trying to win the vote in the chamber,
you are trying to win the argument in the living
rooms of the voters watching at home. Precisely.
But a megaphone only works if you can prove people
are actually listening. Right. Which perfectly
explains their very next move. Because shortly
after the national parliamentary elections, they
throw their hat into the ring for the 2017 Yerevan
City Council election. Yes, shifting from the
national stage to the municipal stage. And for
this run, they change up their leadership strategy.
Nicole Pashinyan, the leader of Civil Contract,
steps up as their candidate for mayor of Yerevan.
And the results in the capital city are drastically
different from the national numbers. Oh, massively
different. They secured 70 ,730 votes in Yerevan,
which gave them 21 % of the total vote. Wow.
Yeah. And that translated to 14 seats out of
65 in the Yerevan City Council. They nearly tripled
their vote percentage in the capital compared
to their national performance. It was a massive
proof of concept. Yeah, it really was. It demonstrated
that while their pro -European reformist platform
might have only captured 7 .78 % nationally,
it resonated deeply in the country's urban, economic,
and cultural center. Right. Yerba isn't just
any city, it's the heart of the country. Securing
21 % there proves you are a rising force. But
there is a detail in the source about this municipal
election that I am genuinely stuck on. What's
that? So Pashinyan runs for mayor, right? He
leads the ticket. He secures this massive 21
percent victory and gets 14 seats for the alliance.
Right. And then the text notes that he gave up
his hard won mandate for the city council. He
did. He chose not to take the municipal seat,
opting instead to continue his work in the National
Assembly as an MP. I look at that and think,
why would you abandon the post you just fought
tooth and nail to win? That almost feels like
a betrayal to the urban voters who just backed
him I can completely see why it looks counterintuitive
Yeah, you fight for local power win it and then
stay in a national parliament where your team
only holds nine out of 105 seats But if you analyze
the political calculus, it is incredibly shrewd.
Oh, so? The city council election was essentially
a stress test for his personal brand and the
Alliance's platform. Taking the seat would mean
bogging himself down in municipal administration.
Right, like fixing potholes, managing zoning
laws, dealing with city budgets. Exactly. While
the real fight regarding the EAEU and the future
of the country's foreign policy is happening
where? In the National Assembly. Exactly. Giving
up the local seat means Pashinyan recognized
that the ultimate lever of power remained on
the national stage. Oh, I see. He used the local
election to build his profile, to validate his
popularity, and demonstrate his political weight.
He leveraged that 21 percent urban victory to
amplify his voice in the national parliament
rather than, you know, changing his career path
to become a city administrator. It was a highly
calculated allocation of their leadership resources.
It really was. And speaking of calculated moves
regarding who goes where, there is this bizarre
historical footnote in the source material that
really highlights how fiercely they guarded.
their specific brand. Oh, the Union for National
Self -Determination. Yes. It involves this other
political party called the Union for National
Self -Determination. Right. Prior to the 2017
elections, the Union for National Self -Determination,
which was another liberal, pro -European party,
officially requested to join the Way Out Alliance.
On paper, they shared very similar ideological
goals. They seemed like a total natural fit.
You would think so, but according to the historical
record, their request was simply never responded
to. The Alliance completely ignored them. This
is another moment that baffles me initially.
If you are a minority opposition group sitting
at under 8 % of the national vote, conventional
political wisdom says you need every single ally
you can get. Right. Build the coalition. You
want to build the biggest tent possible. Why
on earth would you turn away voters and activists
who already agree with you? It reveals a lot
about their internal strategy. By ignoring another
pro -European party, the Way Out Alliance was
signaling that they weren't just a generic catch
-all bucket for anyone who liked Europe. They
were a highly specific, curated organization.
Adding a fourth party especially, a legacy party
with its own history and baggage, could easily
muddy their messaging. It could dilute the brand.
Precisely. It could dilute the brand, or worse,
introduce leadership struggles. The chemistry
between Pashinyan and Sargsyan was clearly functional.
They had a delicate balance of power between
their three factions. And adding a fourth completely
throws off that balance. Exactly. Introducing
outside variables could disrupt that internal
cohesion. It suggests they firmly believed that
a tight, unified, disciplined minority was far
more dangerous to the establishment than a large,
disorganized, fractured coalition. So we have
this tight highly disciplined alliance. They've
tested their strength and parlent, they've proven
their urban appeal in the capital, and they've
fiercely protected their internal chemistry.
They're playing a very calculated game of political
chess. But as we see so often in history, you
can play chess all you want, but sometimes the
board just gets flipped over entirely. And that
brings us to the defining moment of this story,
2018. The 2018 Armenian Revolution. This is where
the political arena fundamentally shifted. The
real shift in their power happens outside the
legislative chambers entirely. Exactly. The Way
Out Alliance transitioned from being a parliamentary
minority making speeches to being an active physical
participant in a nationwide movement. Right.
The source explicitly notes that the Alliance
supported the goals of the revolution and actively
took to the streets in protests supporting Nikol
Pashinyan. Think about that physical shift for
a second. They move from debating trade agreements
and padded chairs to mobilizing citizens on the
streets with megaphones. It's a massive leap.
They are riding a massive unprecedented wave
of revolutionary momentum. The political landscape
is shifting beneath their feet in real time.
The establishment is crumbling and they are standing
right at the forefront of it. They've arrived.
They have finally reached the mountaintop they've
been climbing since December 2016. And this is
where we hit the paradox you mentioned at the
very beginning of the deep dive. The breakup.
Right. Right at the peak of this historical wave,
having successfully navigated the revolution
on September 12th, 2018, the way out alliance
officially dissolves. It's wild. The constituent
parties agree to participate in the upcoming
2018 parliamentary elections entirely separately.
So what does this all mean? I keep trying to
wrap my head around the logic of breaking up
right when you win. It's definitely unusual.
Let me try a metaphor to explain the mechanics
of this, because I think it helps visualize what
actually happened. Sure. Go for it. Think of
the way out alliance, not as a permanent political
party, but as a booster rocket on a space shuttle.
OK. The old political regime was the Earth's
atmosphere. It had immense gravitational pull.
To break out of that gravity, you need a massive
concentrated burst of energy. Right. You need
three different engines, civil contract, Bright
Armenia and Henry Petutian all burning their
fuel together just to achieve escape velocity.
That is a very apt way to look at it. But here's
the thing about a booster rocket. Once you actually
hit orbit, once you break through the atmosphere
and the revolution succeeds, that booster rocket
is suddenly empty. It served its purpose. Exactly.
It's no longer providing thrust. It's just dead
weight. Right. So what do you do? You detach
it. You dissolve the alliance because the specific
mission it was built for breaking the gravity
of the old regime has been accomplished. Or,
you know, it's like a disruptive tech startup.
They build a revolutionary product, successfully
disrupt the entire industry, and then the founders
immediately break up to launch rival companies.
That metaphor tracks perfectly with the historical
aftermath outlined in the source. If we look
at the trajectory of the detached pieces, it
explains the dissolution completely. Let's look
at where the parties actually landed. So Bright
Armenia and the Henir -Apituchin party decided
to stay together, right? They formed a new group
called the Bright Alliance. And how did they
fare without the thrust of civil contract? Well,
they participated in the 2018 Yerevan City Council
elections and they came in third place. They
secured just three seats out of 65. Let's put
that in perspective for a second. The United
Way Out Alliance secured 14 municipal seats just
the year prior. Now, without civil contract.
Two -thirds of the original alliance drops down
to just three seats. It's a huge drop. So what
happened to civil contract in Nickel and Pashinyan?
Civil contract went on an entirely different
trajectory. They teamed up with the Mission Party
to form the My Step Alliance. OK. And they completely
dominated the political landscape. Wow. In those
same municipal elections, the My Step Alliance
swept the board. Their candidate, Haik Marutian,
won decisively and was appointed as the mayor
of Yerevan. So civil contract essentially absorbs
the entire momentum of the 2018 revolution. Basically,
yeah. They realize they don't need the original
booster rocket anymore. They've captured the
public's imagination to such an extent that they
can find a new partner, form a new alliance,
and completely take over the Capitol. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, it's a stark reminder
of the pragmatism of politics. Yeah. When they
were a weak opposition force in 2016, they desperately
needed each other just to survive. They needed
to pool their resources. Exactly, to gain that
initial 7 .78 % foothold. They needed the combined
weight of their leaders to legitimize their platform.
But the revolution blew the doors open. Everything
changed. Civil contract, riding the crest of
that wave, realized their power had grown exponentially
beyond the confines of the three -party coalition.
The environment that necessitated their union
literally no longer existed. They changed the
country, and in doing so, they simply outgrew
each other. It really reframes how we think about
political failure versus success. How do you
mean? Well, we tend to view alliances like marriages,
where a breakup is inherently seen as a failure
or a tragic collapse. Right, like something went
wrong. But in this case, the dissolution of the
way out alliance wasn't a failure at all. It
was the direct byproduct of absolute, unquestionable
success. Exactly. The ignored request from the
Union for National Self -Determination in 2017
showed they were entirely unsentimental about
who they let into their ranks. The 2018 dissolution
showed they were equally unsentimental about
about when to pack it up and move on. They treated
the alliance as a strategic tool, not a permanent
identity. Which brings us to why this all matters
to you listening right now. Why spend time unpacking
the mechanics of an Armenian political alliance
that lasted for less than 20 months? It's a fair
question. Because it is an absolute master class
in how incredibly fast political landscapes can
shift. If you're trying to understand how change
happens in the modern world, this is the blueprint.
It really is. It proves that you don't always
need a decades old institution with endless financial
resources to make history. Sometimes a temporary,
highly focused alliance, a political supergroup
built on a very specific set of grievances lasting
just a matter of months is enough to completely
alter a country's trajectory. way out Alliance
were from a signed piece of paper in December
2016 to holding nine seats to a 21 % urban victory
to a nationwide revolution to dissolving entirely
by September 2018. That is breathtaking speed.
It truly is. And as we consider the mechanics
of power, it leaves us with a lingering somewhat
provocative question to mull over. Let's hear
it. If a political alliance dissolves immediately
after achieving its greatest victory, was that
alliance ever truly a unified vision for the
future, or is it always merely a tool of convenience
for ambitious leaders? Ooh, that's interesting.
It makes you wonder, does the very nature of
victory destroy the need for compromise? When
a group finally acquires the absolute power to
enact its will, perhaps the very first thing
it discards is the necessity of sharing that
power. Does victory destroy the need for for
compromise. That is a brilliant and slightly
unsettling point to end on. Definitely something
to chew on the next time you see politicians
smiling and shaking hands on a debate stage,
promising unity. Thank you for joining us on
this deep dive. Keep questioning the structures
around you, keep looking for the why and the
how behind the headlines, and remember sometimes
the most impactful political supergroups are
the ones that only stay together for one tour.
We'll catch you next time.