Talk:United Opposition of Serbia (1990)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:United Opposition of Serbia (1990)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Vacant0 (talk · contribs) 23:26, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) 09:26, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Starting this review. Very pleased to see the opening note cited. Lead broadly reflects article, lots of sources. However, the article is mainly historical narrative, lacking sections laying out items such as membership, election results, voter composition, which I would expect to see for broadness (GACR3a). These are touched upon in the narrative, and the last one is mentioned in the Ideology section (an example of what I am talking about), but I do not feel these mentions are sufficient for broadness. Article is stable (albeit new), the one image seems to have an appropriate licence. Interested in hearing from the nominator how much can be reshaped/extraced into new sections within the GAN period. It seems possible. CMD (talk) 09:26, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

The membership is already mentioned in the prose, but I can add a separate section that lists party members as I've done in my other party coalition GAs. Regarding election results, the coalition never participated in one (its members, however, did independently, see 1990 Serbian general election). Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:15, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll nevertheless add an election result section, though I'll have to experiment a bit. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:23, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

How are you distinguishing the coalition not participating but the members participating? The article currently says the coalition ran a coordinated campaign, but even without that, I wouldn't think of saying that a coalition of parties that participated in the election did not participate. They're presumably not going to be as ossified as say Coalition (Australia) which is barely a coalition, but we might be looking at somewhere on the spectrum of say Centre-right coalition (Italy) to Pakatan Harapan to United for Hungary. CMD (talk) 10:56, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I'd say that the comparison to Centre-right coalition (Italy) is good enough. I think the prose should clarify this now. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 11:36, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

An initial source check mostly focused on Robert Thomas 1998

• Milosevic is not mentioned in Thomas 1998 p52, I assume this is in Nikolić 2011 p137?
  • Yes. Quote: "Milošević je, međutim, i u narednom periodu bio protiv višepartijskog sistema i slobodnih izbora u Srbiji."
• Is Serbian National Renewal the same party as Serbian Renewal Movement?
  • No. Those are two different entities. Serbian Renewal Movement was created out of Serbian National Renewal.
• Thomas 1998 p69 gives an opposition-claimed rally figure of 70,000. I can't access the newspaper sources, but curious as to if there is a reason one estimate may be more accurate.
  • I've looked again through more sources and found a mention where it says that numbers were reported from as low as 8,000 to 70,000, so I've replaced it with that.
• "UOS demanded..." sentence has similar structure as source. As does "...UOS convened a meeting on 1 October to reiterate their demands; they were also joined by"..., similar to "...Associated Serbian Opposition held a meeting to repeat their demands. They were joined by...". "divided on the issue" is also taken from the source.
  •  Done
• Thomas 1998 p84 says Drašković was set free on 12 March, and as far as I can machine translate, the Kojić source states the release of a prisoners was a cause of the protest end, rather than a result (feel free to correct if the translation is wrong).
  •  Done Yup, this is my bad. He was freed shortly before the protests ended.
• Thomas is a bit unclear on the fate of the UOS, was it formally dissolved or was it effectively forgotten about with the new coalition? Do the newspaper sources provide any insight into this?
  • The newspapers go into detail. UOS parties wanted to reform the coalition a more nationalist one and it ceased to exist with the formation of USDO.
• Thomas is also unclear if the non-founding parties joined the UOS, or merely worked with it. These may of course be the same thing, depending on how the coalition worked. Are there any sources (in any language) that speak to this? Should the Grihović & Radovanović source also be cited on the table?
  • We know that 8 parties were members of the coalition when it was formalised for the election on 12 December. Thomas said that the People's Party (NS), Movement for the Protection of Human Rights, and the Old Radical Party joined with UOS to repeat their demands. I'm unsure whether the latter two were members of the coalition because I do not remember them being mentioned further. We also know that SDPJ, and LS, and SSSS were affiliated with the coalition prior to the elections. Therefore, I've removed the two parties whose membership is not definitely confirmed. Grihović & Radovanović are not needed in this case, I've checked the sources and all of the parties are mentioned in the ones already listed.
• The "regardless of their political affiliation" translation does have an English translation in the source, "no matter his political or party affiliation", which has a slightly different meaning, but if the translation currently being used is a more accurate reflection of "nezavisno od njegove stranačke pripadnosti" then that's fine.
  • The translation is more accurate.

I was able to take small glances at other sources where possible, given linguistic and access considerations, and nothing caused significant concern. Definitely no OR issues anywhere (GACR2c), a few areas of close paraphrasing to Thomas 1998 but only in some of its uses. CMD (talk) 15:11, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the edits and replies above. I'm planning to do some copyediting as this goes along rather than listing everything here, if that's alright. Looking at prose, one issue that pops out is that there's no context as to what the election is, and there are some wording consistencies that might help. The first paragraph of the lead links to our article "1990 Serbian general election", and the second out of nowhere mentions "parliamentary elections". The History section also uses "parliamentary" just once. I assume this is trying to separate the executive and legislative elections, but it is not clear. Relatedly, the article lacks an explanation for how the election functioned. What were the rounds for? Why are seats being won in both? A short summary noting it was a two round fptp system would help. There should be an explanation that the "first round election results" had winners where (presumably) one candidate topped 50%. For the second round, it should be made clear that it was generally (I presume) SPS vs whatever the runner up was. This context is really needed to understand the coalition, and why nezavisno od njegove stranačke pripadnosti existed in the second round but not the first. New Popular Front seems a possible example. CMD (talk)

I actually do not have any problem with you copyediting the article a bit. Luckily enough, I've expanded 1990 Serbian general election so it won't be a problem with clarifying other things you've mentioned. It'll be easier for readers to understand how things worked. I'll work on this by the end of the day. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 16:58, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

 Done Added info on how the election worked. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 11:56, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

• "With the dissolution of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia after the 14th Congress, constituent republics of Yugoslavia such as Slovenia and Croatia held their first multi-party elections, paving the way for a transition to liberal democracy." This needs a bit of clarity. Looking at League of Communists of Yugoslavia, it appears the dissolution of the League and the hosting of multi-party elections are not directly related. Instead, it seems the dissolution is important for creating the separate Serbian party which then became the SPS. The multi-party election point seems separately important.
• With above in mind, probably worth including a (brief!) note somewhere in the timeline about the transition from CPY to SPS, to provide context to who the UOS were campaigning against.
  •  Done
• "meeting between the opposition and the government to discuss its implementation and new election laws". Is "its" here a multi-party system, and if so, was the meeting about "implementation" or would something like "adoption" fit better?
  •  Done
• "all declared", if this was a joint declaration, replace with "jointly declared"
  •  Done
• "organise new elections", is "new" needed here? There is no context of previous elections. Maybe it should say "organise multi-party elections"?
  •  Done
• Could a date be added for the Constitutional Commission of the Assembly of SR Serbia statement? Was the commission linked to the government?
  •  Done It was still a one-party assembly, so yes.
• "with the constitutions of Serbia and Yugoslavia, and announced that a draft constitution would be published in July and proclaimed in December 1990" if such elections were incompatible with the constitutions of both Serbia and Yugoslavia, how could creating one single new constitution fix that?
  •  Done
• "first anti-government protest since World War II" in Belgrade, Serbia, or Yugoslavia?
  •  Done
• "the police intervened at the RTB building". First of all, is RTB Radio Television of Belgrade? If so, the mention of Radio Television of Belgrade needs an (RTB). Secondly, what is the relevance of the RTB building? What were protestors doing there?
  •  Done
• "suddenly announced", what does this mean exactly. Unexpectedly announced? Unilaterally announced? A date for the announcement would help.
  •  Done
• "Despite this, the referendum was widely approved by voters." More detail would help contextualise this. For example, "Despite these calls, the referendum saw a turnout of 78% and resulted in 97% approval for the new constitution."
  •  Done

CMD (talk) 11:10, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

• "UOS came together on the issue of an election boycott in mid-November, when most opposition parties declared one after the government refused to meet their demands." Was this a planned coming together, or did the parties separately announce the boycott/succumb to peer pressure? There weren't 40 parties in UOS, so the next sentence suggests it may have been coincidental as written.
  •  Done
• First round of elections needs a date.
  •  Done
• "UOS was formalised as an informal"?
  •  Done

CMD (talk) 14:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

• "Considering that the government wanted the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) to intervene, Borisav Jović persuaded other constituent republics to allow JNA to intervene by claiming that demonstrators were trying to take over the Yugoslav General Staff building and that the police were broken up and could not take care of the protest." I am not sure what this sentence is trying to say. It looks like it needs to be broken up into 3 or four sentences: at least one on the actual JNA plans/rumours, at least one on Jović (which also has to introduce who Jović is), and at least one on the police claim.
  •  Done
• Is there a date for the first tanks on the streets of Belgrade in 1944, and was it the same day as Kadijević's decision?
  •  Done
• "the investigation of 9–14 March protests", what did they want investigated and why?
  •  Done
• Did the UOS support rise because of the reasons behind the protest, the protest themselves (visibility?), or because of the reaction to the protests?
  •  Done The protests
• Who was involved in the late May talks?
  • SPO, DS, NSS, SRSJ, SLS, NRS, ND, and DF.
• "more nationalist-oriented", does this mean more orientated to nationalist parties, towards nationalistic voters, or something else? Probably also worth specifying "Serbian" nationalist.
  •  Done
• I took from the wording that the talks opened with the name United Serbian Democratic Opposition. If this is untrue, please delete "which would be called the United Serbian Democratic Opposition (USDO) began".
  • It's correct.
• Please check my edit re UJDI and NSS. In particular, it is clear that UJDI was excluded as a pan-Yugoslav party, but I am unsure about NSS.
  • NSS under professor Veselinov was a leftist, autonomist, and agrarian party. Veselinov himself is a notable advocate of social democracy. It was not a Serbian nationalist party.

• "UOS was an ideologically and programmatically heterogeneous and diverse grouping." This seems very dense, and potentially long-winded. Ideologically diverse is clear, but what is meant by "programmatically heterogeneous"? Heterogeneous and diverse are the same here, but I think the whole thing needs to be lengthened. Include that they are diverse, and add something like "...united by the goal of bringing about multi-party politics, and opposition to SPS".
  •  Done
• "to vote for opposition candidates", did they call for votes for all opposition candidates, or just UOS ones?
  • From what I've read it's the former.
• "and private and public sector workers" Is this private sector and public sector workers separately, or just all workers as a whole?
  • Separately.
• Further, was the 1991 poll just of Belgrade (as mentioned in the previous section), or of all of Serbia?
  • Serbia, but they also conducted polls specially for Belgrade.

Just going back up, the sentence "The United Opposition of Serbia (UOS) was effectively created on 5 June 1990, when DS, SPO, LS, NRS, SDPJ, Democratic Forum (DF), and Serbian Saint Sava Party (SSS) formed a coordination body for the planned protest on 13 June" is out of place. It should be somehow merged with "On the same day, DS, SPO, Liberal Party (LS), People's Radical Party (NRS), and Social Democratic Party of Yugoslavia (SDPJ) jointly declared that they would organise a protest on 13 June", hopefully in a way that explains why DF and SSS appear in only one of the two sentences.

• •  Done

Overall, quite thorough, and appreciate the new sections. CMD (talk) 17:07, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

• I've removed "were broken up" as I couldn't figure out what it meant. Please restore it with tweaks if it is needed.
• "the investigation of who was responsible for the 9–14 March protests occurring", not following this, wasn't the UOS responsible?
  • Yes... I really do not get it what they meant by that. They did not go into detail.

Aside from these final points, the article meets GACR1. No issues found with GACR2 throughout source investigations above. The article feels like it covers the main points (GACR3) and doesn't read as unneutral (GACR4). Stability (GACR5) and singular illustration (GACR6) passed as mentioned earlier. CMD (talk) 06:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your thorough review! Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:36, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the pleasant engagement. CMD (talk) 10:45, 27 September 2024 (UTC)