Talk:1987 Valencian regional election

Comparisons with 1983

Impru20, these comparisons aren't accurate. In 1983 the People's Coalition broke down as 21 seats for the AP, 5 for the PDP, 5 for UV and 1 for the Liberal Union. That coalition broke up in 1986 and all those parties contested the election individually. So in reality, AP gained 4, UV gained 1 and the others lost their seats. We aren't comparing like for like here and accuracy is important for the reader. Also, I'm not sure why you refer in your edit summary to the unsourced article on the Spanish wiki, the Catalan article does it more accurately. Valenciano (talk) 20:26, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Valenciano

The data for CP and AP are generally compared between themselves instead of them being counted as separate entities. See examples:

• Argos Information Portal (This is the website from the Valencian Generalitat)
• ABC from 11/07/1987

Even the website you posted, Historia Electoral, compares them together in its graphs and tables: see here.

To name a few examples.

Only you insist on not comparing them. That can be considered POV, as the comparison is done on the basis of common practice by Spanish media (which is only reproduced here on Wikipedia). There is no sense in separating both forces results, and saying that putting "N/A" as "1983 result" is more accurate, because it isn't. While bearing the "People's Coalition" name, both CP and AP (as in a later way the PP) are considered successor political forces, and this is reflected in the media.

So please, stop reverting my edits. Impru20 (talk) 20:31, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

EDIT: You say the Spanish wiki is unsourced, and say that "the Catalan article does it more accurately"... yet it is also unsourced (?). The only "link" being this one, which doesn't work. Also, the Catalan wikipedia makes the AP comparison with the 27 seats the AP-PDP-UL combination had and not with the 19 given to AP alone (and, in percentage terms, it makes the comparison with the full coalition totals of 1983). So, actually, I don't know what are you actually using as basis or what are you trying to defend here. Impru20 (talk) 20:37, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello Impru20, other Wikipedias are not reliable sources. I only mentioned the Catalan Wikipedia as you had mentioned the Spanish Wikipedia, though the former is closer to the real situation. What I'm trying to defend? Is that a rhetorical question? Because I thought my point was fairly clear.

Let me give you an analogy. Russia versus the Soviet Union.

The populations of these were

1991: USSR 293m (Russia 149m, Latvian SSR 2.7m, others 141.3m)

2011: Russia 143m, independent country of Latvia 2m

Now, the media treats Russia as the successor state to the USSR, mainly because it's the largest and had just over the population. Fair enough. But would we be justified in saying that the population of Russia had fallen by 150 million since 1991? Or that the population of the independent country of Latvia (non-existent in 1991) had grown by 2 million? Absolutely not. Substitute AP-PDP-UL for the USSR, the AP for Russia and UV for Latvia and that's exactly what you were originally doing. We're not comparing like with like.

The AP had 21 members of the 1983-1987 legislature, they had 25 members of the 1987-1991 legislature, so it's simply wrong to say that they lost seats, as all AP members were re-elected. It was the PDP and UL which lost. While the parties were part of a joint list, the respective party affiliations of those on the list were listed on the ballot papers of the time (see this link for example.) That was the problem that I had.

Nonetheless, as a compromise, I can accept your revised wording. Incidentally, it wasn't my intention to offend you by reverting your edits, so okay, in future, I'll drop a message on your talk page instead and we can work out a compromise wording there. The only thing I'd ask is that if you are changing my edits that you take care not to change things which are *indisputably* correct. For example you'd changed the number of members in the Corts from 89 to 99. I changed it back to the correct figure and you reverted that. You've also changed "which ran" back to "which run." Valenciano (talk) 12:17, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

One thing, though. I still have a problem with describing Unio Valencia as "a big winner" of the election. Big winner in what sense? They were joint-fourth in terms of numbers of seats and only increased their totals by one compared to the previous legislature where they had members. I'd be much happier if, instead of:

"The big winners were the centrist Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), which saw a significant increase in its vote share, and the Valencian Union (UV), which ran separately for the first time and won 6 seats compared to the 5 "

We had:

"The centrist Democratic and Social Centre (CDS) saw a significant increase in its vote share, and the Valencian Union (UV), which ran separately for the first time, won 6 seats compared to the 5..."

"Big winner" is a subjective term (see WP:EDITORIAL) and you could argue the big winners were the PSOE, which won 4 times the number of seats the CDS won, so I think it would be best to reword. What do you think? Valenciano (talk) 12:26, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

What you are saying is reasonable, but could be considered as POV. I mean, you say that it is not reasonable to say that the population of Russia would have fallen by 150 million since 1991. Fair enough, but actually hardly anyone makes that comparison. What I'm saying is that nearly everyone (including the website of the Valencian Generalitat as well as the website of "Historia Electoral" you posted here) treat CP and AP as the same entity when making comparisons with past elections. Even the media, back on its day, did such a comparison to argue the "failure" of AP to gain ground in the different autonomous communities and municipalities. So it's not the same case than the USSR and Russia issue, because here realiable sources do indeed point out to such relation of succession. Furthermore, comparison for CP and AP can't be done on the same basis as you proposed, because:

1. AP did not won its 21 seats in 1983 on its own right, but rather, the entire coalition won 32 seats and then, of those 32 seats, 21 were awarded to AP after the election as part of the coalition agreement. So those weren't theorical election results, really, and can't be treated as such.

2. Actually, we would never know what would have been AP's true strength should it have stood alone in 1983 (as in 1987 the party was in crisis, and not really an appropiate time to see its electoral strength), but we can't say that they did make gains when no source points up to it. Seeing the proportion of the 1987 vote for AP and PDP (23% and 1%), and the fact that, throughout its history, opinion polls did not even mention the PDP when it ran separately (and the ones that did showed very low levels of support): if we were to make comparisons based only on the seats each party gained in 1983 as part of the coalition agreement, effectively it would seem that it was the PDP the one that collapsed and AP the one who did make gains, when that would not make much sense given AP's 1987 situation, opinion polls, media coverage of the election results and, generally, how media and other political websites do treat as of currently the data comparisons (as an example, aside from the links I previously posted: see this comparison of regional election results from 1983 to 2011 made by El Mundo and see how all AP-CP-PP results are compared together).

3. The alternative you did propose was to leave the Last election results simply as "N/A". Which obviously isn't accurate, either, since those parties did stand in the previous election. Continuity, in elections, is important. So, were we have to choose between two not-really-100%-accurate options, the less confusing is to use the one used by sources, adding a Note pointing out that the 1983 results were part of the full coalition results. It's the most practical solution, as well as what reliable sources do reflect.

No, well, you didn't offend me, but I actually got a little shocked when you started reverting my edits in such a way. I didn't mean to be rude, either, but I really hate edit wars. xD On your second statement, the last times I reverted your edits I did indeed tried to preserve those edits that were okay or that did indeed improve over what I did, but I acknowledge that I may have missed some changes. Feel free to correct those indisputably correct edits as intended if I did revert those. Cheers. Impru20 (talk) 13:46, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

EDIT: I'm posting this after seeing your new comments about the "big winners" expression. That has an explanation based on the media coverage of that year's election results. See these:

• El Pais front page, 11 June 1987
• El Pais front page, 12 June 1987
• El Pais election results coverage, 11 June 1987
• El Pais election results coverage, 12 June 1987

A. The CDS and UV were doubtlessly the great winners of the night. The CDS, because it went from not being relevant to becoming the third political force in the region with 11 out of 89 seats (see, for example, party reactions and celebrations after the election results, not only in Valencia, but nationwide too. El Pais also considered them as a victor). UV, on the other hand, went on from not standing on its own in 1983 to finishing a close third to AP in the province of Valencia (and in the city itself they were tied with AP at 19-20%). I would also have to look for more opinion polls at the time (it's difficult since in the 80s Internet didn't existed), but it seemed like UV's entry into the Corts was not even expected. It's a matter of expectations; "winner" does not always mean "finishing 1st".

B. The same goes for the PSOE: it's a matter of expectations. Despite finishing in 1st place they were considered one of the main losers of the election, as they had went on from scoring one of the community's largest absolute majorities in history (52% of the vote and 57% of the seats) to lose it, alongisde 10 percentage points. They did "win", sure, and they were able to keep the regional government, but they fared worser than what they had expected.

In any case, this is more debatable and may be subject to various changes. I'm just explaining the reasoning behind why I used that expression, but keep in mind that what I wanted was to have a little introduction to the article. I'd actually be fine with other wording, but I think it's interesting to highlight PSOE's strong descent compared with both CDS and UV surges. Impru20 (talk) 13:46, 7 April 2015 (UTC)