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