:00:28. > :00:46.Political drama at the Mont. -- Stormont. I nominate Arlene Foster
:00:47. > :00:55.to be First Minister. Today, Sinn Fein will not renominate for Deputy
:00:56. > :00:58.First Minister. They will attempt to bring down the executive whenever
:00:59. > :01:07.they don't get their own way. Again and again. For our part, we have
:01:08. > :01:12.stretched ourselves to the limits to try to keep these institutions
:01:13. > :01:16.working. The collapse not only caused a snap election, it also
:01:17. > :01:23.raises questions about the fundamentals of our system of
:01:24. > :01:27.government. Tonight, in the first of two programmes, we examined
:01:28. > :01:33.power-sharing. Has a system designed to manage political tensions in
:01:34. > :01:41.divided societies delivered for Northern Ireland? Can it work better
:01:42. > :01:44.and can even be put back together after the election? And we go to
:01:45. > :01:57.Kosovo to see how power-sharing is working there are.
:01:58. > :02:06.In this village, women from across the community meet every Friday to
:02:07. > :02:08.meet and chat. Many of them had great expectations for
:02:09. > :02:17.power-sharing, but are disappointed at what has happened. What would you
:02:18. > :02:23.like to see? Peace. They have to make it work. You have to move on.
:02:24. > :02:31.The politicians will not move on and the political parties will not. What
:02:32. > :02:39.does power-sharing mean? It doesn't mean an awful lot because they are
:02:40. > :02:49.just going against each other. Whether it is health, education, it
:02:50. > :02:57.just falls apart. It's not right. It is separated into any Unionist plot
:02:58. > :03:10.and the Nationalist Bloc. Which it shouldn't be. I don't know of any
:03:11. > :03:14.other way to sort it out. Some hardline rulers don't want to change
:03:15. > :03:31.-- Unionist block. Ted Heath agreed with the Ulster
:03:32. > :03:41.leaders. To set up a power-sharing executive in Belfast. We want
:03:42. > :03:46.nothing to do with enforced power-sharing in any undemocratic
:03:47. > :03:52.government in Stormont. The first attempt at power-sharing ended in
:03:53. > :04:02.failure. I have never experienced a sad day in my life. It took 25 years
:04:03. > :04:06.and the loss of over 3000 lives before an agreement was reached on a
:04:07. > :04:17.deal for devolution, the Good Friday Agreement. Power-sharing forced
:04:18. > :04:25.unionists and nationalists to work together. All of the major parties
:04:26. > :04:30.could enter government and exercise control. There was never any
:04:31. > :04:35.alternative to power-sharing, given the bitterness between the parties.
:04:36. > :04:43.The unionists community would never have accepted Sinn Fein in the
:04:44. > :04:49.driving seat. Or maybe even the SDLP. You had to get everybody
:04:50. > :04:55.together in the tent in government together. The rules of power-sharing
:04:56. > :05:01.were moulded to fit Northern Ireland's divisive politics. Under
:05:02. > :05:06.those rules, every MLA in the assembly has to identify themselves
:05:07. > :05:11.as Unionist, Nationalist or other. Laws may be passed by a simple
:05:12. > :05:19.majority, but special power-sharing safeguards are in place to prevent
:05:20. > :05:23.majority rule. The safeguards ensure that both unionists and nationalist
:05:24. > :05:28.traditions are included and neither can act without some support in the
:05:29. > :05:37.other community. In short, power-sharing Stormont is an
:05:38. > :05:42.invented system of government. You can't have normal politics in a
:05:43. > :05:47.divided society, which is artificially put together to get an
:05:48. > :05:55.in-built majority. And that's the difficulty. The Ulster Unionists and
:05:56. > :06:01.the SDLP topped the first election poll. But they soon began to lose
:06:02. > :06:10.ground to parties further from the political centre. There was nothing
:06:11. > :06:21.inevitable about power are going to the extremes. It was a mismanagement
:06:22. > :06:31.from government. The long way to the IRA decommissioning... As people who
:06:32. > :06:36.supported the centrist parties became disappointed, so the only
:06:37. > :06:41.ways could punish the government was by not supporting the moderate
:06:42. > :06:47.parties. The decline of the moderate parties goes right back to the
:06:48. > :06:53.policies that followed in London and Dublin. My good friends and the SDLP
:06:54. > :06:58.used to say, why are you spending so much time talking to Sinn Fein? We
:06:59. > :07:03.are trying to deal with decommissioning and you don't have
:07:04. > :07:09.any guns, so we have to do talk to the people have some influence, so
:07:10. > :07:13.there was always that tension. In 2006, the St Andrews Agreement paved
:07:14. > :07:18.the way for the return of power-sharing following its collapse
:07:19. > :07:23.four years earlier. Key elements included a full acceptance of the
:07:24. > :07:29.PSNI by Sinn Fein, as well as a commitment by the DUP to
:07:30. > :07:34.power-sharing with Republicans. Tony Blair's chief of staff at that time
:07:35. > :07:38.was Jonathan Powell. People say we gave in to the extremes and allowed
:07:39. > :07:47.them to rule in Martin Alund. We started off the the SDLP and the UUP
:07:48. > :07:50.we ended up with Sinn Fein. That is the way the people of Northern
:07:51. > :07:55.Ireland voted. When the assembly returned to business in 2007, it was
:07:56. > :08:06.led by the most unexpected partnership. I was up in the
:08:07. > :08:16.balcony. I had been sitting in Ian Paisley's office when they were
:08:17. > :08:21.telling jokes. I was still completely gobsmacked. If you had
:08:22. > :08:26.told me some time ago that I would be standing here to take this
:08:27. > :08:31.office, I would have been totally unbelieving. We know this will not
:08:32. > :08:38.be easy and the role we are embarking on will have many twists
:08:39. > :08:44.and turns. IR firm the terms of the Pledge of office. I affirm the
:08:45. > :08:52.Pledge of the terms of offers. It was a feeling of, gosh, they can get
:08:53. > :08:55.on. I was feeling pretty good. Power-sharing promise political
:08:56. > :09:12.stability. But it has been a bumpy ride at times. We need real talks,
:09:13. > :09:15.not pretend talks. We have run out of road. We believe it needs more
:09:16. > :09:20.than a sticking plaster of a recess for a couple of weeks. We believe
:09:21. > :09:29.you cannot stabilise these institutions by suspending them.
:09:30. > :09:34.Despite its challenges, power-sharing is increasingly viewed
:09:35. > :09:41.as a means of resolving political conflicts in divided societies. I
:09:42. > :09:47.work around the world on conflicts. Normally the answer is some form of
:09:48. > :09:54.power-sharing. Stormont is marketed worldwide as a template for
:09:55. > :09:58.power-sharing. There is a little cottage industry of trotting around,
:09:59. > :10:04.explaining to people how to was done. Usually the accounts that
:10:05. > :10:12.innocent foreigners are given are not entirely accurate. This isn't
:10:13. > :10:17.really a good thing, but there we are. For some, power-sharing might
:10:18. > :10:25.be best practice, but the struggles of making work are not unique to
:10:26. > :10:29.Northern Ireland. There are many examples of power-sharing in
:10:30. > :10:35.countries where ethnic division or conflict has made traditional
:10:36. > :10:39.politics impossible. We travelled to Kosovo, to see how power-sharing
:10:40. > :10:49.works in a country similar in size to Northern Ireland. Identity here
:10:50. > :10:54.is divided along ethnic lines. Its population of 2 million is mostly
:10:55. > :11:00.Albanian, Serbs are in the minority. Street signs are in two languages,
:11:01. > :11:03.Albanian and Serbian. The country emerged from the Balkan wars,
:11:04. > :11:12.following the break-up of Yugoslavia. Tens of thousands were
:11:13. > :11:19.killed in the conflict in the late 1990s, when Serbian forces tried to
:11:20. > :11:22.suppress the ethnic Albanian majority is and independence
:11:23. > :11:38.campaign. Close to people fled their homes. The legacy of that brutal war
:11:39. > :11:41.is still very much alive. In Kosovo, like Northern Ireland, when you're
:11:42. > :11:47.driving along country roads, you see small memorials or flowers left were
:11:48. > :11:55.some of the thousands of people who lost their lives in 1998 and 1999.
:11:56. > :12:04.This is a formal memorial for some of the 1500 people that remain
:12:05. > :12:08.missing. And like in Northern Ireland, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton
:12:09. > :12:19.played a role in Kosovo's path to peace. Kosovo's crisis now is
:12:20. > :12:30.full-blown. But there is intervention in Kosovo started with
:12:31. > :12:36.Nato air strikes. Only firmness now can prevent later catastrophe. In
:12:37. > :12:43.the capital city, Kosovo Albanians credit Bill Clinton with ending the
:12:44. > :12:47.conflict in 1999. In his honour, this is Bill Clinton Street. This
:12:48. > :12:53.statue is an expression of their gratitude. The gold that covered the
:12:54. > :13:01.statue has faded, but the esteem in which he is held remains. Tony Blair
:13:02. > :13:07.to is celebrated by Kosovan Albanians, but not with a statue.
:13:08. > :13:12.During the Nato strikes, he visited refugee camps, including one where a
:13:13. > :13:25.Kosovan refugee had just given birth to a baby boy. That baby is now 17
:13:26. > :13:31.years old. And named Tony Blair. He is studying to become an engineer.
:13:32. > :13:37.One of at least nine Kosovan boys named after Tony Blair. Do your
:13:38. > :13:42.parents talk about how you came to have the name Tony Blair? Yes, they
:13:43. > :13:56.told me. They said I was named after Tony Blair because he said he would
:13:57. > :14:06.give the people hope. My father believed that. They named me that
:14:07. > :14:10.after I was born. His father told us through an interpreter what the name
:14:11. > :14:19.Tony Blair means to him. TRANSLATION: So happy to have the
:14:20. > :14:26.name of Tony Blair, the great statesman who helped our country so
:14:27. > :14:37.much. I believe you got to meet him? Hello, my name is Tony Blair. He was
:14:38. > :14:42.really generous. I think he was really feeling good. What are your
:14:43. > :14:51.dreams for this country? My dreams are to have the young people of
:14:52. > :14:57.Kosovo have jobs, and make Kosovo are better place. There is a key
:14:58. > :15:02.difference between power-sharing Stormont and hear. Positive
:15:03. > :15:06.discrimination. Ten out of 120 seat in the assembly are reserved for
:15:07. > :15:13.Serbs, ten for other ethnic minorities, mostly former. But like
:15:14. > :15:19.Northern Ireland, there are also in-built safeguards. Laws affecting
:15:20. > :15:26.minorities require the agreement of a majority from minority
:15:27. > :15:31.communities. I have come to meet the director of the Kosovan branch of
:15:32. > :15:32.the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to find out
:15:33. > :15:43.how power-sharing works here. Up until now Kosovo Serb
:15:44. > :15:48.representatives have participated in every government since 2008. We see
:15:49. > :15:55.good cooperation on some issues. What are the stumbling blocks? It is
:15:56. > :15:59.a new state. It is a state that is being formed, its people are trying
:16:00. > :16:06.to figure out what is this creature? So there are a lot of issues there,
:16:07. > :16:13.issues from the past, issues about power-sharing. Went to include, how
:16:14. > :16:17.to include, why to include. Because of power-sharing deal also
:16:18. > :16:20.guarantees that at least one government minister has to be from
:16:21. > :16:32.the minority Serb community. One such miniature -- minister is this
:16:33. > :16:40.man. Power-sharing should be something that as a result gives a
:16:41. > :16:44.better conditions but what we have is mistrust and trust is the key
:16:45. > :16:51.word. We are trying to build the trust, trust between the people, two
:16:52. > :16:56.different people, Albanians and Serbs. Unfortunately, we do not have
:16:57. > :17:04.that, we need peace and we need to work together. Kosovo remains a
:17:05. > :17:10.deeply divided society. Serbian, Albanian, Kosovan flags, Serbian
:17:11. > :17:17.Orthodox churches and mosques set areas are part and like parts of
:17:18. > :17:22.Belfast, interfaith areas are a source of tension. I have left
:17:23. > :17:30.Pristina and I am heading north to another city, this remains a flash
:17:31. > :17:40.point for Albanians and Serbs. It is literally a divided city. From afar,
:17:41. > :17:43.this bridge does not look significant, but instead of
:17:44. > :17:48.connecting two communities, it separates them. The minority Serbs
:17:49. > :17:55.live in the north and in the majority Albanians in the South. The
:17:56. > :18:02.river separates the two worlds. I wanted to find out that the next
:18:03. > :18:06.generation believes that the two communities are working together.
:18:07. > :18:16.What is the population of the city? It is more than 90,000. This
:18:17. > :18:19.remembers any majority Albanian enclave on the south of the river
:18:20. > :18:25.and thinks that power is being slowly delivered here. I think there
:18:26. > :18:32.are groups here which cooperate with the Kosovan government. I see the
:18:33. > :18:40.willingness from some political parties, Serbian ones, to try to
:18:41. > :18:45.help the process of integration. Hubble, eager. I am Jennifer, lovely
:18:46. > :18:49.to meet you. Either is Serbian and lives on the other side of the
:18:50. > :18:55.bridge. Power-sharing as he sees it as yet to deliver. Kosovo
:18:56. > :19:00.politicians are talking about integration on an international
:19:01. > :19:06.scene but not too ordinary people. You yourself are served living in
:19:07. > :19:10.Kosovo, as the government here delivered on education, health,
:19:11. > :19:16.employment, things like that, could you recognise an independent Kosovo?
:19:17. > :19:20.Emotionally, Serbs will never accept it as a separate country and that
:19:21. > :19:25.this something that is very clear. Albanians and Serbs are learning to
:19:26. > :19:29.live together, but tensions often spill over in Parliament. There have
:19:30. > :19:38.been a number of occasions when a tear gas was set off in Parliament
:19:39. > :19:41.and at one stage, a security measure was brought in to prevent the
:19:42. > :19:51.smuggling of father canisters. In the capital Pristina, I met
:19:52. > :19:56.government minister and detail. Has power-sharing delivered for Kosovo?
:19:57. > :20:02.I think in the conditions that we have operated within, it has
:20:03. > :20:08.delivered quite well. I think it is rather challenging. However, all
:20:09. > :20:12.politicians who want to serve the future of the country understand
:20:13. > :20:21.that power-sharing is the essence of functionality and democracy of any
:20:22. > :20:26.state, including Kosovo. We have to struggle for consensus and that is
:20:27. > :20:32.not easy in any political context. In any society. But what is the
:20:33. > :20:37.alternative? Here, in Kosovo, I believe the alternative is conflict.
:20:38. > :20:43.And I do not think that conflict is a good thing for any community. As
:20:44. > :20:48.in Northern Ireland, growing mutual trust between two communities here
:20:49. > :20:55.is slow. The optimism and ambition that came in the wake of PC in
:20:56. > :21:01.Kosovo has, it seems, yet to fully emerge at a political level because
:21:02. > :21:05.it is still emotionally charged identity politics, characterised by
:21:06. > :21:08.a high level of mistrust. And the big question for politicians here
:21:09. > :21:17.is, how was it possible to find common ground in the face of
:21:18. > :21:21.opposing positions on key issues? Sound familiar? Trust is also a
:21:22. > :21:25.major issue at Stormont and it was clearly missing on the day
:21:26. > :21:32.power-sharing collapsed last month. But opinions differ as to why this
:21:33. > :21:37.was the case. Power-sharing is essentially, if we are ever going to
:21:38. > :21:41.make these institutions work. Where I am critical of the two parties
:21:42. > :21:46.that have been in the castle for the last ten years is that there has not
:21:47. > :21:51.been a mutual effort to build proper trust and that is reflected in our
:21:52. > :21:54.community, where the two traditional haves have yet to build trust and
:21:55. > :21:58.are looking for leadership to build that trust, and that is the solid
:21:59. > :22:04.foundation on which we can build political progress, and it is still
:22:05. > :22:08.missing, now 19 years after the signing of the Belfast agreement.
:22:09. > :22:14.But to do the problems at Stormont go beyond issues of trust? Is there
:22:15. > :22:17.a flaw in the design of our political system that makes genuine
:22:18. > :22:23.power-sharing and impossible task which two is it the case, as some
:22:24. > :22:26.have argued, that the changes to the Good Friday Agreement at Saint
:22:27. > :22:36.Andrews Pond power-sharing into the sharing out of power? After the Good
:22:37. > :22:40.Friday Agreement, the DUP, Sinn Fein and the British government got
:22:41. > :22:44.together and eroded the principles of power-sharing, that is why they
:22:45. > :22:48.are in the situation today. For me, power-sharing is not just some kind
:22:49. > :22:51.of construction, where people have to work together, the spirit of
:22:52. > :22:55.power-sharing is where people should work together and that is why
:22:56. > :22:59.parties like my lawn and other parties on the size of the divide
:23:00. > :23:02.want to work together. I am absolutely committed to
:23:03. > :23:06.power-sharing and so is our party, we have struggled for a long time to
:23:07. > :23:12.get power and put it into place but it has been eroded. Writer Mick
:23:13. > :23:15.fealty is the founding editor of one of Northern Ireland's leading
:23:16. > :23:20.political blogs. The system itself is rigid and it has been made more
:23:21. > :23:25.rigid since the St Andrews agreement. What we have is an
:23:26. > :23:31.embedding of power and what is now called the Executive office and
:23:32. > :23:37.which was OFM, DFM. It invested awful lot of power in the two
:23:38. > :23:42.parties that all two offices. The first and Deputy First Minister 's
:23:43. > :23:46.were originally collected by all MLAs. But under a change in the St
:23:47. > :23:53.Andrews agreement to are now nominated separately by the largest
:23:54. > :23:57.and second largest parties. It has given them no option than to see
:23:58. > :24:03.themselves as adverse arrays. The classic phrase from early, early
:24:04. > :24:11.days in 2007 was a battle a day. And that has been taken so literally
:24:12. > :24:15.that neither of the major parties wants to be seen in the pockets of
:24:16. > :24:23.the other one that it has led to complete stasis. The ability of the
:24:24. > :24:25.two main parties to block one another has prevented progress and
:24:26. > :24:29.has taken away some of the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement which was
:24:30. > :24:33.about cooperative work and consensus government. Instead, what we have is
:24:34. > :24:38.if we do not both agree, no one moves forward. We must move forward.
:24:39. > :24:41.Despite the ups and downs, power-sharing has enabled unionism
:24:42. > :24:46.and nationalism to work together, but some believe it has achieved
:24:47. > :24:51.little else and is actually strengthening the divide at a
:24:52. > :24:57.political level. Take any subject, with whatever hospital services,
:24:58. > :25:01.waiting lists. Out of control and yet, we do not even have a budget
:25:02. > :25:06.from the 1st of April, so we cannot tackle any of these things. This
:25:07. > :25:10.Stormont has had its day. No surprise to me, I have always said
:25:11. > :25:16.that one day it would fall because it was built upon sand and I believe
:25:17. > :25:22.that that he might have now arrived. The problem with power-sharing in
:25:23. > :25:27.the North is that it freezes the sectarian situation in the North.
:25:28. > :25:32.The Good Friday talks and all of the rest of it does not consist of
:25:33. > :25:37.establishing a different form of politics that both parties can
:25:38. > :25:40.adhere to, the technology is the difference, it requires the
:25:41. > :25:44.difference in order for it to work. There is no way that you could
:25:45. > :25:49.describe Northern Ireland as a classic example of classical
:25:50. > :25:54.democracy. It was, from the very beginning, a construct. It has been
:25:55. > :26:00.described as having the ugly scaffolding of democracy, and that
:26:01. > :26:02.is partly because it has been an enabling mechanism, it was felt
:26:03. > :26:07.necessary at the very beginning to create this stable condition. Is
:26:08. > :26:16.there something about power-sharing that polarises politics? I think in
:26:17. > :26:21.the terms that we have, it is clearly a polarising, because we
:26:22. > :26:28.have the designation system. What it creates is an incentive for people
:26:29. > :26:33.to flag up the nationalism or their unionism as their primary political
:26:34. > :26:39.quality. So, to some extent, yes, it has copper fastened the tribalism of
:26:40. > :26:42.Northern Irish politics. It was inevitably flawed because it was an
:26:43. > :26:50.entirely artificial form of politics. It was necessary and I
:26:51. > :26:55.still think it is necessary and for a while it will remain necessary,
:26:56. > :26:59.but it is not a natural construct. For some, the collapse of
:27:00. > :27:06.power-sharing at Stormont stems from a lack of genuine effort in trying
:27:07. > :27:10.to make it work. I think the spirit of power-sharing has been lost quite
:27:11. > :27:15.a number of years ago and what we have increasingly seen over the last
:27:16. > :27:20.number of years is a division of power and carving up of power rather
:27:21. > :27:26.than a genuine sharing, where they have shared values, shared ambitions
:27:27. > :27:31.for Northern Ireland society and try to deliver them together. That has
:27:32. > :27:33.been exacerbated in some ways by the institutions, you cannot put this
:27:34. > :27:40.down to institutional failure alone, there is the lack of goodwill and
:27:41. > :27:46.generosity. Has it worked within the spirit it was intended to? No, it
:27:47. > :27:50.hasn't, if it had, it would not have collapsed. We would not have seen
:27:51. > :27:55.the arguments that we have seen in the past months. Can it work? Yes,
:27:56. > :28:00.the agreements are the upon which it can work but there must be a change
:28:01. > :28:02.of attitude in terms of how political unionism adapts and works
:28:03. > :28:11.with the nationalist and republican neighbours. Northern Ireland needs a
:28:12. > :28:16.stable government. We, as a party, have done all that we can to
:28:17. > :28:20.maintain government in the Northern Ireland Assembly so that the real
:28:21. > :28:23.issues like health, education and Brexit are addressed. But instead of
:28:24. > :28:28.trying to work with us, as we have done so many times in the past with
:28:29. > :28:34.Sinn Fein Omagh they have chosen to pursue political self-interest. They
:28:35. > :28:37.did not like the election result last May and therefore they are
:28:38. > :28:43.looking to have another go at the election. The collapse of Stormont
:28:44. > :28:48.has coincided with momentous political uncertainty. Brexit has
:28:49. > :28:53.profound implications for Northern Ireland and its border with the
:28:54. > :28:56.Republic of Ireland. Growing political tensions within the
:28:57. > :29:01.republican also cast a shadow over Stormont. Next week, Spotlight asks
:29:02. > :29:06.how and if power-sharing can be put back together, or has the delusion
:29:07. > :29:17.as we know it runs out of road?