With the Assembly heading towards completing an uninterupted term, this leads to the obvious question of how it was achieved when previous attempts failed?
Factors like events and St Andrews leading to the resolution and tying down of issues reduced the number of potential landmines as the instrumentalism of the process declined towards a more constitutive conclusion. The two largest parties, that create the core of the Executive, being more disciplined helped too. However, has their scepticism of mandatory coalition from these two parties assisted in it working?
The DUP made it consistently clear it was not a fan of our system of government. While Sinn Fein signed up to Stormont and devolution it is often forgotten that they held out on this to the very conclusion of the negotiations of the Belfast Agreement - IIRC their alternative to an Assembly being over 90 powerful local councils (yes you read that right over 90). Has this scepticism of the system made them better at making it work?
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