Talk:2022 Serbian local elections/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 17:46, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:46, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

The image is in the public domain. I will check sources next, which will be slow as I need to use machine translation. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:55, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I've managed to extract the list of websites and am looking through them with Chrome translation. I'll post here the ones I can't verify as reliable; unfortunately that's likely to be many of them, so please excuse me if some of this are obvious to someone who knows the language. Some seem to be substantial news organization; others look like local community news sites that may not be reliable, or advocacy groups. For example I see "NEZAVISNI PORTAL VESTI ZAPADNE SRBIJE" on one site; "independent news portal" can mean good local journalism, or it can mean an group with a political bias.

• q-media.rs
• vesti.knjazevac.org.rs
• vojvodjanski.com
• tvjasenica.rs -- looks like a news aggregator?
• beta.rs
• direktno.rs
• istmedia.rs
• jugpress.com
• palankadanas.com
• autonomija.info
• blic.rs
• bor030.net
• juznevesti.com
• nasemesto.rs
• ozonpress.net
• podunavlje.info
• prviportal.net
• timocka.rs
• zrenjaninski.com
• zamedia.rs
• zoomue.rs

I'll pause here till we've dealt with this list. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:09, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

• Q media is a local news website from Kula, they also operate a TV and a radio station. I find their news reports to be reliable. Knjaževačke vesti (vesti.knjazevac.org.rs) is another local news website. I went through their website and I couldn't find anything that I would deem to be unreliable. Vojvođanski (vojvodjanski.com) rather collects news from other local news organizations, I'd see if I can find a replacement for this one. RTV Jasenica is not a news aggregator, but a local and long-running television and news organization from Smederevska Palanka. Beta News Agency (beta.rs) is not up to debate, they're one of the most reliable news organizations in Serbia. Direktno (direktno.rs) is a widely-used news website, it looks to be tabloid-style but it is reliable. IST Media is a regional news website, their news reporting seems to be reliable. Jugpress is a long-running news organization from Southern Serbia, they are certainly reliable. Palanka Danas (palankadanas.com) in this case would not be considered to be reliable, their reporting seems to be biased towards the governing party. Autonomija is a regional website from Vojvodina, they don't seem to biased towards a certain party or group, one of their authors is also a well-known journalist Teofil Pančić. Blic is one of the most used newspapers in Serbia, although sometimes their political stories tend to be biased towards the ruling party, in this case the stories present in the article look neutral. Bor030 is a local news website, I don't see this as an unreliable website. Južne Vesti is definitely reliable, their news reports are also probably one of the best at the moment. Naše Mesto (nasemesto.rs) is a news website from Sombor, I've read a few stories, they seem to be neutral. I have mixed feelings about OzonPress, I'll see if I can find a better source. Podunavlje Info looks reliable, although I might find a better source if there is one. Prvi Portal Bajina Bašta (prviportal.net) is a news and television channel, it is reliable and neutral. Timočka (timocka.rs) is a regional website, their stories seem to be reliable. Same goes for Zrenjaninski, ZA Media, and ZoomUe. Most of these websites are reliable, I've pointed out which one contain unreliable and biased news. Vacant0 (talk) 23:07, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for going through those. So Palanka Danas should be removed, and you're going to look into OzonPress and Podunavlje Info -- is that correct? If so I'll wait a day or so and carry with the review once you've made whatever changes are needed. I'm happy to take your word on the reliability of the other sites; many of them looked the way reliable sites look, if you know what I mean, but I wanted to check. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:05, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

  Luckily, I was able to find replacements for those sources. Palanka Danas, Ozonpress, and Podunavlje Info sources have been removed. Vacant0 (talk) 10:03, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Earwig finds no issues. Continuing the review:

• The lead should be a summary of the article, but the lead is the only place where there's a simple list of the municipalities which held elections.
  •  Done --Vacant0 (talk) 17:48, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
• "Voting was also repeated twice on five voting stations in Belgrade": why? And I see in the body this is mentioned in the aftermath; wouldn't it make more sense to cover it in the section on Belgrade?
  •  Done --Vacant0 (talk) 17:48, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

    You have "due to objections that were made by UZPS and SDS the election was repeated at five voting stations on 16 and 21 April respectively"; suggest "election was repeated at five voting stations on 16 April and again on 21 April". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:26, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

     Done Is it alright now? I've moved that part at the beginning of the sentence. Vacant0 (talk) 20:09, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

    Actually I meant in the body, but that's fine; I made the edit to the body text. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:47, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• "During the inter-election period between March and October 2021, dialogues between the government and opposition parties regarding the electoral conditions were held over the course of several months.[17] The two groups reached an agreement on 29 October, after which they signed the document regarding the improvement of electoral conditions that includes changes to the minimum required number of collected signatures for minority ballots, and changes to electoral-driven bodies and rules." It seems the dialogues extended past the October election, and in any case I don't think we need to mention the election when giving those dates -- we mentioned them at the start of the paragraph. "Over the course of several months" is unnecessary because we give the dates which are several months apart, and I think we don't need to say they thought it was an improvement -- that's obviously why they agreed. Suggest "Between March and October 2021, the government and opposition parties held dialogues about electoral conditions. The two groups signed an agreement on 29 October that included changes to the minimum required number of collected signatures for minority ballots, and changes to electoral-driven bodies and rules." But what does "electoral-driven bodies" mean?
  •  Done --Vacant0 (talk) 15:45, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• "During this period, environmental protests also gained more presence, most notably after the roadblocks in November and December 2021." "During this period" refers to March to October 2021, so November and December are outside the period. What does "gained more presence"? Became more frequent? More widespread? Achieved more publicity?
  •  Done --Vacant0 (talk) 15:58, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

    We now have "due to the adoption of the law on referendum and people's initiative": the referendum isn't explained till the end of the paragraph; I think this should be reworked to be more chronological. And in "referendum and people's initiative", what does "people's initiative" refer to? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:26, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

    "Referendum and People's Initiative" is the name of the law that is related to referendums and initiatives. This law had an impact on the constitutional referendum. The expropriation law made an impact on the environmental protests. I'll add some context. Vacant0 (talk) 20:13, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

     Done I've added "The modifications to the law on referendum and people's initiative abolished the 50% turnout that was needed for referendums to pass". Vacant0 (talk) 20:23, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• "A constitutional referendum also took place in January 2022, in which the "yes" option, which was supported by the government, prevailed over the "no" option, although the turnout was reported to be at 30 percent." What was the referendum question? Or is it relevant to this article?
  •  Done --Vacant0 (talk) 15:58, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• "Local elections in Serbia are held under a proportional representation system in the area of a municipality or a city as a whole": what does the last part of this mean? Would we lose anything if we cut this to "Local elections in Serbia are held under a proportional representation system."? Municipal/city elections are local elections, after all; and come to that municipality and city are close to being synonyms.
  •  Done --Vacant0 (talk) 16:12, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• I'm not sure I would link "ballot list" to ballot. Is it the case that a voter votes for an entire ballot list, not for individuals? Or is the ballot list submitted across the whole municipality, listing all the candidates everywhere, and then the ballot papers allow individual choice for each position up for election?
  • Voters don't vote for individuals. Parties have to submit a ballot list which includes the ballot leader/representative and the list of their local assembly candidates. See the 2022 parliamentary ballot list for example. --Vacant0 (talk) 16:12, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

    That's helpful. Many readers will be unfamiliar with this system so I would suggest "Shortly prior to the election, parties must submit a ballot list with its candidates and their ballot leader; voters then vote for an entire ballot list, rather than for an individual candidate. After the election..." Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:26, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

     Done Vacant0 (talk) 20:22, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• "at least 3% of the popular vote in order to cross the threshold": suggest "at least 3% of the popular vote for the party to gain representation in the election", or perhaps, since lots of places don't have PR, "The electoral threshold in local elections is 3%: that is, a party must receive at least 3% of the popular vote to be represented in the local assembly".
  •  Done
• "Minority ballots need to collect at least 5,000 signatories in order to qualify on ballot.": By "qualify on ballot" does this mean that a party can't submit a ballot list unless they have 5,000 signatures on some sort of qualifying application? How would you ever achieve that in Medveda, where there were only 6,175 eligible voters?
  • I've removed this because this is related to national-level elections. --Vacant0 (talk) 16:12, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• "Ivica Dačić, the president of the National Assembly, called the local elections on 15 February, and shortly afterwards Aleksandar Vučić, the president of Serbia, dissolved the National Assembly, after which the official electoral campaign began." I had assume until I read this that there was some sort of electoral cycle, with different areas of Serbia coming up for local elections at different times. This makes it sound as though in fact it would not have happened if Dačić had not called the local elections. If that's the case, why is it only these municipalities that had elections this time round?
  • Some were called earlier than they were supposed to, while for some municipalities these were regular local elections. --Vacant0 (talk) 16:12, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• "an initiative to arrange the stairs near the building of the old railway station": what does this mean?
  •  Done Fixed. --Vacant0 (talk) 16:14, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• I appreciate that guidance is usually to use prose, not lists, but I think some of the details of ballot submission dates and results which are repeated in each section don't need to be there. A column before the "Votes" column that shows the ballot submission date would be fine, and I don't see any reason to list the results in prose when they're easier to read in tabular form. That would make it easier to see the information which is not one of those two things, such as the coalition agreements.
  • A such parameter does not exist for the "Election results" template. I think that the best way would be to keep it how it is, otherwise, there would be little to no text in these sections. --Vacant0 (talk) 16:21, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

    I'll strike, since I think this is OK for GA, but there's no requirement to keep a minimum amount of text in a section -- it's whatever serves the reader best. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:26, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• I was going to suggest that the turnout also doesn't need to be in prose, since it's in the table, but first I want to ask why the figure for Aranđelovac is 64% according to the City Election Commission but 63% in the table.
  • It was a typo. --Vacant0 (talk) 16:21, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

That's it for a first pass. I'm going to hold off on spotchecks till some of these issues are dealt with. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:01, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

One more:

• In the source review above you indicated you were going to try to find a replacement for vojvodjanski.com, which is still in the article -- I missed that one when summarizing.
  •  Done Correct, I've missed that one out. I've replaced it. --Vacant0 (talk) 20:27, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I'll do some spotchecks shortly. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:26, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

All points struck above. Spotchecks may be tomorrow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:47, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Spotchecks:

• FN 117 cites "Zlatko Ostojić, the leader of the civic group "Citizens of Kula and Our City", had claimed that two ballot lists were submitted in an illegal way, and that bribery took place during the collection of signatures." Verified.
• FN 140 cites "Electoral irregularities were reported to have occurred at voting stations." Verified.
• FN 184 cites "Vesna Đurić, who previously served as the president of the municipality of Bajina Bašta, was sworn in on 12 May; all 24 members of the Serbian Progressive Party city assembly group voted in favor." Verified.

No problems with the spotchecks. Passing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:22, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! Vacant0 (talk) 14:29, 18 September 2022 (UTC)