Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1973 Equatorial Guinean presidential election


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Eddie891 Talk Work 22:00, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

1973 Equatorial Guinean presidential election

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Nominating this for deletion as it not clear whether it actually happened. The article was originally written based on an entry in the African Elections Database. However, this was subsequently deleted. Why there was supposedly an election is unclear, as the president at the time had only recently been declared president for life.

As discussed on the talk page, there is an es.wiki article, but it is heavily sourced to a book that contains some basic factual errors (for example, its source for the claimed results of the election (a Nohlen et al. book) is actually the results of a referendum in the same year.

With this in mind, I thought it might be a good idea to AfD it, in case anyone can provide some definitive sources that it happened (or not). Number  5  7  20:53, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Africa-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  21:19, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone  21:19, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Delete: Great catch! Almost everything points to this having been a mistake in the African elections database, creating effectively a duplicate of 1973 Equatorial Guinean constitutional referendum. I believe that Nohlen's book and the es.wiki page (and, by the way, a ca.wiki page) are basically correct, and both give a July date for a constitutional referendum. I checked in Lent's Heads of States and Governments and it agrees that there was a referendum and a parliamentary election in 1973 but makes no mention of presidential elections. If we believed that the 1973 Equatorial Guinean constitutional referendum constituted a sort of presidential referendum, we could follow articles like 2002 Iraqi presidential referendum, at least as the title of a redirect, to clarify that it was not really an "election". But I'm not convinced that's true. Worse, there appears to be an outright mistake here: in no source can I find evidence that anything happened in October 1973. So in the end delete looks like the most correct option. - Astrophobe  (talk) 07:31, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Although I guess that Nohlen's book doesn't have an error, does it? On page 356 it lists a July referendum and no 1973 presidential election. That table says there were no presidential elections between 1968 and 1989 (with one referendum in 1982 that could apparently be considered an election). And, with due respect to WP:EXPERT, that's pretty much the standard reference text, and I'd be inclined to believe it unless there's really strong evidence not to. - Astrophobe  (talk) 07:41, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete My search does not find anything to support this article. Jeepday (talk) 18:28, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete "... a new constitution presented to the Third Congress of PUNT in July 1973, approved by PUNT and ratified by a referendum organised by PUNT. The new constitution contained a clause requiring election of the president by direct secret universal suffrage, but as the Thrid Congress proclaimed Macias President for Life, this clause was immediately suspended." No mention in the Historical Dictionary of Equatorial Guinea Timeline for 1973 (p xxvi) or the entry under Macias (pp 237-240).


 * Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 13:40, 13 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.