Talk:Elections in Croatia/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Aircorn (talk · contribs) 08:50, 25 May 2012 (UTC) Sorry about the delay. I will look to get a review up sometime this week. AIRcorn (talk) 01:00, 3 June 2012 (UTC[reply]

Comments

Okay I have started reading through this article. I will post my comments piecemeal as I read. Because of this some of my questions may be answered further down. I know very little about politics, and even less about Croatian politics so please bear with me. However, if I can understand this article anyone should be able to. AIRcorn (talk) 10:01, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Parliamentary elections

140 members of Parliament.. I was always told that if you have to start a sentence with a number it should be written out. That sentence is a bit to the point to open with. Maybe it could be made a bit more introductory. "The Parliament of Croatia is made up of 140 members..." maybe.

Restructured the introductory bit, starting with the total number of MPs, and avoiding starting the sentence with a number.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:03, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The first two sentences mention ten constituencies, but an eleventh is introduced. Should the first sentence say eleven?

Actually there are twelve constituencies - reorganized the first two paragraphs to clarify.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:08, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The latest constitutional changes would avoid ambiguous dates as they get out of date quickly. Better to say "in 2011", or whatever date is needed. I found this sentence a bit confusing, could it be explained better (what was the ratio used or if it varied maybe an example/range of seats allocated)

I introduced the constitutional amendments year (2010) and elaborated a bit more on the change, hopefully clarifying the situation.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:30, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think my recommendation made it slightly worse. I have had a go at rewording it. Feel free to fix, revert or improve on it. AIRcorn (talk) 07:02, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to struggle with the references, so some good faith will be extended. However the first reference seems to go to a default home page[1] and when I google translate the About Parliament page it seems to say there are twelve constituencies, not eleven.[2]

Okay, I found this[3]. It appears there are ten territorial constituencies, one for Croations overseas and another for minorities. I think this could be introduced better, starting with twelve and then breaking them up into their different groups.

The first reference indeed defaulted to home page of the ref publisher (the Sabor) apparently the news bit was removed. However, I found another source (now #2) containing the same, although in a more lengthy prose, and an archive containing the earlier posting of the Sabor and added archiveurl parameter for that one as well.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:30, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nationality of the voters is listed in the voter register, as provided by registrar office birth register data and other documents amending the birth register information. To many registrars, registers.

Reworded to remove all but one.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:43, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Probably a bit overkill, added one back in to try and make it a bit more thorough. Again feel free to revert or change if you feel it doesn't work. AIRcorn (talk) 07:11, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Re-reading this I am not sure how the vital record list fits in. If a voter does not need to declare their nationality what purpose does the list have? AIRcorn (talk) 07:18, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The point is that if one has a option of selecting a territorial or national minority list to vote for, unless declared a Croat. The nationality information is kept in vital records (as a part of birth certificate, marriage certificate and death certificate). All changes you made seem fine to me.--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:21, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The nationality need not be declared and may also be declared as unknown Would "or may be declared as unknown" work better.

Reworded per suggestion. That's better solution indeed.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The last two sentences of the paragraph appear to be saying something similar, could they be worked in together?

I tried to clarify, shorten and integrate the two, ~~but I'm not quite happy about the result. Maybe the sentence would be better off split up in two?~~--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:54, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As in the presidential elections, .. Is this needed? There is no mention of Presidential elections at this point. I would also wikilink election silence.

No, that's not needed and now it is removed. The term is wikilinked now.--Tomobe03 (talk) 14:06, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is this going to be updated every election, with the most recent one given its own section and the old election moving down to previous elections?

Hopefully yes. The article was originally written before the last general election and got updated quite quickly, I can't offer any guarantees on that, but there were several editors interested in updating this article, creating separate one on the elections and updating the Parliament of Croatia article as well (me included), so I'm hopeful on this one.--Tomobe03 (talk) 14:06, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What is the Chamber of Deputies? How does it fit in with the Social-Political Council of Croatia, the Municipalities Council of Croatia and the Associated Labour Council of Croatia. I am guessing it is the name of Parliament once these were combined into a single Chamber. If so what is the difference between Zastupnički dom and Hrvatski Sabor. I feel I am missing something here.

"Hrvatski Sabor" is Croatian name for "Parliament of Croatia", and "Sabor" equals "Parliament" in Croatian, but only referring to the Parliament of Croatia - other country's parliaments are called "Parlament".
Before Communist rule, and even following 1947 constitution, Sabor was unicameral. In 1953 it became bicameral. In 1963 it had five chambers, and in 1974 three. That arrangement survived until 1990, and the three were named "Social-Political Council", "Municipalities Council", and "Associated Labour Council", each chamber checking work of the others, all of them being required to adopt proposals before they become binding legislation. The first democratic elections held in Croatia since start of the Communist rule and one-party system were held for seats in those three chambers of the Parliament. 1990 constitution abolished the three chambers and defined a bicameral parliament - the lower house called "Chamber of Deputies" and the upper house called "Chamber of Counties". The latter was designed to have 3 MPs from each County (comparable to US Senate having 2 senators from each state regardless of its size). Since the counties were not established at the time (abolished in 1921), the chamber was vacant until the counties were finally established in 1992, and elections for the chamber were held for the first time in 1993. Constitutional amendments of 2001 abolished the Chamber of Counties and the parliament became unicameral once again in effect equating the Chamber of Deputies to the Parliament of Croatia. Still the term "Chamber of Deputies" is no longer used since the parliament became unicameral except in texts dealing with history of the parliament and similar.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:10, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also the section starts off saying "Since 1990, six parliamentary elections have been held in Croatia", but further down it says "Six parliamentary elections have been held since for the Chamber of Deputies" and lists six dates not including 1990?

Oops, that should have read "Since 1990, seven...". There were six elections for the Chamber of Deputies or the unicameral parliament which actually nominated prime ministers. The 1990 election elected tri-cameral parliament which elected president of the republic who in turn appointed the entire government cabinet including the prime minister, and the parliament would simply vote to support it. Looking at this now, this seems less than fortunate solution, especially since there were also two elections for the Chamber of Counties held separately from any of these seven. My intention was to detail elections for the Chamber of Deputies and the unicameral parliament in this section only - I suppose subsection title is at fault here as well - I'll think of a more descriptive, yet brief one.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've split off the 1990 elections as those are not really comparable to other Chamber of Deputies elections - CoD elections are grouped with the unicameral Sabor ones precisely because they are comparable. Also, table captions were clarified to avoid any confusion what they pertain to.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:31, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

...and Ivan Grubišić's list won seats on its own list. This might need some clarification.

I tried to reword this for clarity.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:51, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since the parliament seats won belong to individuals rather than parties, there have been instances where individuals would become independent or switch to another political party. Would Member work here. "there have been instances where Members would become independent or..." Sounds better than individuals (and saves repeating it twice in one sentence) to me.

Yes it would.--Tomobe03 (talk) 16:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Chamber of councils: A little confused here with the dates. From the previous section I got that in 1990 there was an election for three chambers and in 1992 the elections for the single Chamber of Deputies started. This section implies that the Chamber of Deputies had been elected in 1990. I don't know how the Chamber of councils fits in. Is parliament bicameral, unicameral or tricameral in 1990? I am sure there is a logical explanation, but I am quite confused at the moment.

I assume you mean "Chamber of Counties". Could you take another look at this now that the changes discussed above were made?--Tomobe03 (talk) 16:04, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments

The nationality paragraph still confuses me. This is my understanding from reading it. If you belong to one of the recognised minorities you can vote for one of eight seats (three if you are a Serb). Voters do not need to say what nationality they are when voting and if they don't they can vote for one of the 10 territorial lists or one of the 22 minorities.

So if I am a Croat can I vote in the Serb minority if I don't declare my nationality? This doesn't make sense to me, what is the point of having minority seats if anyone can vote for them.

Or does the sentence The voters nationality need not be declared or may be declared as unknown relate to the registry? Does it mean that the registry might record a voters nationality as unknown. Therefore you have to register as something, either a nationality or as undecleared or unknown. This makes more sense to me. AIRcorn (talk) 14:01, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Um, no. Obviously I mangled that, so this is what it should in effect be: Nationality is declared by parents at birth or by an individual him/herself (if previously undeclared, or if that specific persons wishes to change any previous declaration of his/her respective nationality). Those declarations are maintained as a part of vital records by the registrar's office. The declaration is optional and one can live quite happily without ever officially declaring him/herself to belong to any nationality whatsoever. The declaration of nationality may refer to any nationality whatsoever - Croat, a recognized minority, or any other nationality (e.g. French). The vital records are used to produce voter registries in each county, and any previous declaration of nationality is reflected in the voter registry. At polling stations, the following happens (I hope I make sense now):

Those who have declared themselves officially as Croats may vote for a territorially applicable election list only.
Those who have declared themselves officially as members of any of the recognized minorities (e.g. Italians) are given choice of voting for the territorially applicable election list or the applicable minority list (in this case the one where candidates run for a parliamentary seat reserved for Italian minority - in effect only officially declared Italians holding Croatian citizenship may vote for that list, but they may opt to vote for the territorial election list instead).
Those who did not make any official declaration of their nationality (in terms of being recorded by a registrar's office) are given option of selecting any one of the minority lists to vote for or the applicable territorial election list instead.
Those who have declared themselves officially as belonging to any other nationality than those included in the recognized minorities (e.g. French) may vote for a territorially applicable election list only (i.e. the same as those declaring themselves Croats).

Declaration of nationality cannot be made at the polling stations - that can only be done beforehand in the registrars office (possibly changing the declaration as many times as one wishes). Information supplied at the registrars office is used to compile list of voters, and the list contains the declaration of nationality. If none is declared beforehand, the voter register will indicate nationality as "unknown/undeclared" and only then the voter may choose to vote for virtually any minority list or the territorial list. If the voter register indicates nationality as any of the 22 recognized minorities, the voter may choose between voting for that specific minority list and the territorial list. Everyone else - Croats and minorities not included in the 22 recognized ones - may not vote for any of the minority lists. I expanded a bit on this in the article - hopefully that's clearer now.--Tomobe03 (talk) 21:04, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've attempted to clarify matters. BTW, is it possible for someone whose nationality has been previously declared (by the person's parents or by the person themselves) to remove that declaration, becoming "unknown/undeclared"? Allens (talk | contribs) 20:26, 16 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The applicable legislation defines procedure for any corrections, and does not limit number of how may times one can perform such "corrections". It does however bar changes being performed within 14 days ahead of elections.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:16, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand now. AIRcorn (talk) 10:44, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Final comments

Finally got there. Made a few changes here. You might want to check them. These will be the last ones I promise. AIRcorn (talk) 11:48, 25 June 2012 (UTC)¸[reply]

I had a look at them as you went along, those are all fine. I'll tackle the comments below right away.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:49, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The last Croatian presidential election was held on 27 December 2009 with... Could we change last to something else. For a moment there I thought it meant literally the last.

Changed the "last" to the "most recent" - I'll have a look at the rest of the article and maybe vary the two expressions a bit elsewhere instead of using "last" exclusively.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:53, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Croatia is expected to elect 12 members of the European Parliament in a by-election held after its accession to the EU unless those elections cannot be held more than six months prior to scheduled 2014 European Parliament election which are already planned to include Croatia. Bit too much information in this sentence. Maybe it could be cut in two.

I split the sentence now - hope this arrangement is better - at least it looks better to me.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:58, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Provisions of the legislation are very similar to the parliamentary-election legislation, with the main differences reflected in 12 members of the European Parliament elected in a single constituency encompassing all of Croatia. Found this one a bit confusing too. What is the main difference?

The only difference is that there is a single constituency in the European Parliament elections encompassing all Croatian voters, instead of ten territorial constituencies (and additional ones for the minorities and the diaspora).--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:02, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In order to become an official candidate in presidential elections, 10,000 signatures from Croatian citizens aged 18 or over must be collected and submitted to the State Electoral Commission within 12 days following publication of the decision to hold elections in Narodne Novine, the official gazette of the Republic of Croatia. This sentence could probably be split into two too.

Now you got me thinking for a moment. Apparently the sentence was already split. Should I do something else to it?--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:16, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nah. I wrote it and then decided to do it myself. Forgot to remove it from here afterwards. My bad. AIRcorn (talk) 12:48, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Every such addition is quite welcome.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Companies and other legal persons are limited to the same amount in local elections Do you mean the same amount as individuals?

Yes, in case of the local elections. Individuals are limited to the fixed amount per year regardless of purpose (i.e. type of elections) while companies and other legal persons are allowed to make greater donations for purposes other than local elections.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:28, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) noted in its report that the largest parties reported their advertising spending reduced Reduced from what?

Actually the report says "below actual value" of the expenditure (say one million instead of two). I tried to clarify this a bit.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:36, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

...although the register was improved, there is room for further improvement. This reads like Wikipedia is saying the register has room for improvement. Can it be attributed?

The source used to back the claim contained the attribution, and now it's in the prose too.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:43, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the commission finds the complaint valid, it will order repeated performance of activities concerned (possibly postponing the election date if there is insufficient time left to perform them) Not sure what this sentence means. "Repeated performance of activities concerned"? Time to perform what?

Well, just about anything specified by applicable election legislation. Some of the activities defined by the legislation carry time constraints - for instance a list of candidates must be published a given period of time before a given election is scheduled. If for example a candidate is rejected by the election commission, and the candidate successfully appeals against the decision, the commission is required to postpone elections if the appeal is not dealt with prior to the moment when the candidate list is due for publication (as determined by legal time constraints and scheduled election day). This never happened in practice though - the appeals are resolved in a timely manner, and the provision seems to be a safeguard against illegal disqualification of candidates by dragging out the appeals procedure.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:51, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried to clarify this bit without resorting to a lengthy explanation. Could you have another look at it?--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:09, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You better check this to see if I have not changed the meaning too much. [4] AIRcorn (talk) 07:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could you look into the license for the File:Sabornica.jpg picture? It says the author is en:User:Muleni, but it was uploaded by RafaAzevedo. The source link is circular. The rest seem fine.

Actually it appears on the official website of the parliament here. Since the parliament permits use of material published on its website without any special permission here, provided that the material origin is credited, I'll fix that image's sourcing accordingly.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:11, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed on the Commons now.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:01, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure. Images are not my strong suit. I have found this and it seems to be suggesting you can only use them under fair use. I am pretty sure a picture of the Croatian parliament would not qualify under WP:NFCC. I prefer to err on the side of caution (particularly given the dodgy upload history), but will be willing to seek a second opinion if you really want to keep it. AIRcorn (talk) 07:17, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I am concerned, it is just the picture left. AIRcorn (talk) 07:32, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there... Let me add a few remarks:

The image's license does not allow derivative works, so it is not Commons-compatible and strictly speaking should be deleted.
However, there should be no problem uploading it to Wikipedia with an appropriate license tag. The upload form says "This is a free work" and explains it as I can demonstrate that it is legally okay for anybody to use, in Wikipedia and elsewhere, for any purpose., which is precisely the case here.
If I understand correctly such use does not contravene WP:NFCC in any of the ten points. It is substantially free use for all purposes, including commercial ones, and the only limitation is on derivative works.

Please give me time until this evening (CET) to double check whether the above is true. If it is I'll upload the image myself. GregorB (talk) 09:13, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for chipping in!--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:09, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to keep the present image, if possible. Otherwise, it is quite acceptable to replace it with File:Croatian parliament.jpg. I'll wait until tonight to see if GregorB comes up with a solution, and then switch the two if no other solution is available, if that's alright.--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:22, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No problem... A quick update on the above points: I'm right regarding #1, half-right regarding #2 (full explanation later, if you're interested), and half-right regarding #3. Basically, it is a fair-use image just like others. Specifically, "non-free content is used only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created" (NFCC #2) and the parliament building is still standing. Also, "non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding" (NFCC #8), and there is no pressing need to show the inside of the parliament building, as opposed to the outside. Plan B looks likely, but still let me check all this once again with the experts. GregorB (talk) 11:33, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently the image in question can't be used in the article - see WP:CQ#Limitations on non-free media for details. GregorB (talk) 17:21, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Changed the image accordingly.--Tomobe03 (talk) 20:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Passed. AIRcorn (talk) 05:46, 27 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]