Scraper

Welcome to barlaman

A Python library to Scrap raw data from the Moroccan Parliament (House of Representatives) website.

Requirements

These following packages should be installed:

I. Scrape the schedule :

Each Monday, and in accordance with the Constitution, the House of Representatives convene in a plenary sitting devoted to oral questions. Before the sitting, the House of Representatives publishes the schedul of the sitting (pdf file in arabic). The first page of this document (the schedule) contains the following data (see picture below) :

Illustration

F2tables

To get the schedule use the function : getSchedule(path) where path is the document path

path= ".../ordre_du_jour_30052022-maj_0.pdf"
schedual = getSchedule(path)

The output schedual is a dictionary with the following keys :

II. Scrape sitting’s questions :

The remaining pages of the schedule document contains :

*illustration

questTable

To get these question tables use the function : getQuesTable(path) where path is the document path

path= ".../ordre_du_jour_30052022-maj_0.pdf"
question = getQuesTable(path)

The output question is a dictionary of dictionaries whose keys are the the names of ministeries present at the setting.Inside of each dictionary there is a dictionary with the following keys :

Example

{
  'ﺍﻟﻌﺪﻝ': {'timeQuest': ['00:02:00', '00:02:00', '00:01:40', '00:01:35'],
  'parlGroup': ['ﻓﺮﻳﻖ الأﺼﺎﻟﺔ ﻭ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﺎﺻﺮﺓ',
   'ﻓﺮﻳﻖ الأﺼﺎﻟﺔ ﻭ ﺍﻟﻤﻌﺎﺻﺮﺓ',
   'ﺍﻟﻔﺮﻳﻖ الاﺸﺘﺮﺍﻛﻲ',
   'ﺍﻟﻔﺮﻳﻖ الاﺴﺘﻘﺎﻟﻠﻲ ﻟﻠﻮﺣﺪﺓ ﻭ ﺍﻟﺘﻌﺎﺩﻟﻴﺔ'],
  'txtQuest': ['ﺗﻮﻓﻴﺮ ﺍﻟﺘﺠﻬﻴﺰﺍﺕ ﺍﻟﻀﺮﻭﺭﻳﺔ ﺇﻟﻨﺠﺎﺡ ﻋﻤﻠﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﺤﺎﻛﻤﺔ ﻋﻦ ﺑﻌﺪ',
   'ﺗﻨﻔﻴﺬ الأﺤﻜﺎﻡ ﺍﻟﻘﻀﺎﺋﻴﺔ ﺿﺪ ﺷﺮﻛﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﺘﺄﻣﻴﻦ',
   'ﺧﻄﻮﺭﺓ ﻧﺸﺮ ﻭﺗﻮﺯﻳﻊ ﺻﻮﺭ الأﻄﻔﺎﻝ ﺃﻭ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﺻﺮﻳﻦ',
   'ﺇﺷﻜﺎﻟﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﺒﻂﺀ ﻓﻲ ﺇﺻﺪﺍﺭ الأﺤﻜﺎﻡ ﺍﻟﻘﻀﺎﺋﻴﺔ'],
  'typeQuest': ['ﻋﺎﺩﻱ', 'ﻋﺎﺩﻱ', 'ﻋﺎﺩﻱ', 'ﻋﺎﺩﻱ'],
  'codeQuest': ['1505 ', '2386 ', '2413 ', '2829 '],
  'indexQuest': ['22', '23', '24', '25'],
  'subjIden': [' ', ' ', ' ', ' ']}
}

III. Setting’s transcript

After a setting, the Parliament published a pdf file of the setting transcript in arabin containing all debates that took place during the setting. The unique content, structure and language of records of parliamentary debates make them an important object of study in a wide range of disciplines in social sciences(political science) [Erjavec, T., Ogrodniczuk, M., Osenova, P. et al. The ParlaMint corpora of parliamentary proceedings] and computer science (Natural language processing NLP) .

Illustration : Transcript

transcript

Unfortunatily we can’t use the transcript document as it is provided by the parliament website because the document is written with a special font. In fact, if we try to scrape the original document we get a text full of mistakes (characters not in the right order).So we must change document’s font before using it. See the picture bellow :

font

Until now there is no pythonic way to change the font of the document (at least we are not aware of its existence,especialy that it’s in arabic. All suggestions are most welcome). So we are doing the the old way : using Microsoft Word.

To get the raw transcripts use the function : getRawTrscp(path,start=1,end=-1,two_side=True) where path is the document path, start is the number of the page from where you want to begin extracting text (The first page is 1 not 0!) , end is number of the page where you want to stop extracting text and two_sideif the pdf has two sides one in the left and the other in the right.

path=".../42-cdr23052022WF.pdf"
transcript=getRawTrscp(path)

The output is a dictionary of dictionaries in the form of : {.,’page_x’:{“page”:page,”rigth”:right,”left”:left},.}

where :

To store the output of getRawTrscp in a folder use :texToDir(path_pdf,parent_dir,start=1,end=-1,two_side=True,both_format=True,file_type='json') where:

This function creates a new folder having the same name of the pdf file (purple box, see image below) in the parent directory (red box). Depending on arguments, we can find three type of files in the new created folder : a JSON file containing the complete text of the transcipt (all of it), text files each one containes text of a specific page and a text file with the complete text.

Example

path_pdf='C:/Users/pc/Desktop/ParlWatch/42-cdr23052022WF.pdf'
parent_dir='C:/Users/pc/Desktop/ParlWatch/'
texToDir(path_pdf,parent_dir,start=1,end=4,both_format=True)

directory

IV. Deputy data and parliamentary activities

Each deputy has a section at the parliament website where we can find the following data :

To get this data use the function :getDeputy(url,include_quest=True,quest_link=False,quest_det=False) where

There is two ways to get the urlof a deputy : getUrls() and getUrlByName(name). The first one outputs a dictionary of the complete list of deputies and there urls. The last one outputs the url of the deputy name..

url_bouanou=getUrlByName("Abdellah Bouanou") ## Get the link of Abdellah Bouanou
url_bouanou  # 'https://www.chambredesrepresentants.ma/fr/m/abouanou'

url="https://www.chambredesrepresentants.ma/fr/m/adfouf"
# We can have three scenarios
first=getDeputy(url)
second=getDeputy(url,include_quest=True)
tird=getDeputy(url,quest_link=True,quest_det=True)

The output is a dictionary with the structure below :

      {"Nom":name,"description":desc, "task":task,"Agenda":agenda,"Questions":Quests} In first scenario we get : ```python {'Nom': {'Député': ' Abdelmajid El Fassi Fihri'},  'description': {'Parti': "Parti de l'istiqlal",   'Groupe': "Groupe Istiqlalien de l'unité et de l'égalitarisme",   'Circonscription': 'Circonscription locale',   'Circonscription_1': 'Fès-Chamalia',   'Legislature': '2021-2026',   'Membre des sections parlementaires': ' Commission Parlementaire Mixte Maroc-UE                                                                                            '},  'task': {'Commission': "Commission de l'enseignement, de la culture et de la communication"},  'Agenda': {'Agenda_1': {'heure': '15:00',    'evenemnt': 'Séance plénière mensuelle des questions de politique générale lundi 13 Juin 2022'},   'Agenda_2': {'heure': '10:00',    'evenemnt': 'Séance plénière mardi 7 Juin 2022 consacrée à la discussion du rapport de la Cour des Comptes 2019-2020'},   'Agenda_3': {'heure': '15:00',    'evenemnt': 'Séance plénière hebdomadaire des questions orales lundi 6 Juin 2022'},...}},  'Questions': {'NbrQuest': ['12'],   'Dates': ['Date : 20/04/2022',    'Date : 04/03/2022',..],   'Questions': ['Question  :  ترميم المعلمة التاريخية دار القايد العربي بمدينة المنزل، إقليم صفرو',    'Question  :  المصير الدراسي لطلبة أوكرانيا'..],   'Status': ['R', 'NR', ..],   'Quest_link': [],   'Quest_txt': []}} ```

In the third scenario,’Quest_txt’ is different than [] and we get:

'Quest_txt': [{'Nombre Question': ' 3475',
    'Objet ': ' ترميم المعلمة التاريخية دار القايد العربي بمدينة المنزل، إقليم صفرو',
    'Date réponse ': ' Mercredi 8 Juin 2022',
    'Date de la question': 'Mercredi 20 Avril 2022',
    'Question': 'صدر مرسوم رقم 2.21.416 ( 16 يونيو 2021) بالجريدة الرسمية عدد 7003 بإدراج المعلمة التاريخية "دار القايد العربي" بمدينة المنزل بإقليم صفرو في عداد الآثار، حيث أصبحت خاضعة للقانون رقم 22.80 المتعلق بالمحافظة على المباني التاريخية والمناظر والكتابات المنقوشة والتحف  الفنية والعاديات، وأكد صاحب الجلالة الملك محمد السادس في الرسالة السامية التي وجهها إلى المشاركين في الدورة 23 للجنة التراث العالمي في 27 مارس، 2013 ، "أن المحافظة على التراث المحلي والوطني وصيانته إنما هما محافظة على إرث إنساني يلتقي عنده باعتراف متبادل جميع أبناء البشرية".وقد طالبت جمعية التضامن للتنمية والشراكة بمدينة المنزل بإقليم صفرو، دون الحصول على رد، بتخصيص ميزانية لترميم هذه الدار التاريخية وتحويلها إلى مؤسسة ثقافية لخدمة ساكنة المنطقة وشبابها بخلق دينامية ثقافية لتكون منارة للأجيال القادمة.وعليه، نسائلكم السيد الوزير المحترم، ماهي الاجراءات التي ستتخذها وزارتكم قصد ترميم وتأهيل معلمة دار القايد العربي بمدينة المنزل بإقليم صفرو وتحويلها إلى مؤسسة ثقافية في إطار عدالة مجالية.'},...]

Question ?

Contact me on Twitter @AmineAndam or on Linkedin ANDAM AMINE.