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| A BRIEF HIRTORY OF TUMIKOM |
TUMIKOM's history begins with the formation of the Committee of Parliamentary
Monitors (MIKOM) in the province of Muğla in 1996. MIKOMs were soon formed by
local citizen initiatives in provinces throughout the country. It was at this
point that TUMIKOM, the Association of Parliamentary Monitoring Committees of
Turkey, was formed to function at a national level. They were formed by ordinary
citizen on volunteer basis. TUMIKOM's represent the initiative of citizen volunteers
representing different political parties. This diversity of opinion and party
affiliation is a major strength of the organization.
Up to this time each MIKOM acted separately and adopted different methodologies
and practices. These differences prevented MIKOMs from working together as one
unified group. A major contributing factor was the inability of MIKOMs to effectively
accumulate and share information.
At the 2001 summit meeting of MIKOMs a discussion was started about the need
to act in unison., These discussions concluded at the "MIKOM's fifth national
summit" in 2002 which participating MIKOMs agreed to a common set of aims and
ideas. This transformed the way MIKOMs were to work in the future.
The movement to create a national organization was launched by Istanbul MIKOM
in 2003 through the creation of an Internet e-group, turkiyeMIKOM@yahoo.groups.com.
MIKOMs started to share information and accumulate a collective body of knowledge.
Agreement to form the Association of Parliamentary Monitoring Committees of Turkey
(TUMIKOM) was reached at the 2003 summit meeting with participation of 30 MIKOMs.
In addition agreement was reached to produce annual "National Report" and release
the results to the general public. Participating MIKOMs also agreed to prepare a
"Report of Promises" at the regional level. The summit concluded with the election
of a TUMIKOM secretariat.
In the National Summit on July 1, 2003, MIKOMs agreed on setting a national structure
called TUMIKOM. The representatives of 30 provinces come together under the name
of Turkey Association of Committees for Monitoring Parliament and Elected Officials
(TUMIKOM) and targeted to be organized in the all provinces of Turkey. The ethic
principles of TUMIKOM was determined as volunteerism, impartiality, objectivity,
honesty, responsibility, accuracy, clarity, trustworthiness, democratic, patriotic,
independence, rule of law, right to privacy, non-partisan. All representatives agreed
on preparing a report in which the parliamentary activities were evaluated within
national standards by monitoring the parliamentarians individually. Local
representatives would suppose to prepare local reports containing the activities
of parliamentarians in their election regions and the promises they have given to
public during election campaigns. The centre of TUMIKOM would prepare interim
reports for public when it is needed. In the Summit, the central secretariat of
TUMIKOM was determined and Mr. Mustafa DURNA was elected as the leader of TUMIKOM
for two years and became the speaker of TUMIKOM. Result of the Summit published
by a popular magazine called Aktualite.
Between 2003-2005 Summit, central secretariat of TUMIKOM met nine times and discussed
how to develop the organizational structure such as strengthening the relation between
representatives, preparing the national report etc. In this period TUMIKOM's term
speaker announced weekly 'responsibility reports' for explaining the activities in
national scale.
TUMIKOM web site, www.tumikom.org
established in Turkish.
For getting direct information about TUMIKOM's activities, e-mail group
Tumikom-TR@googlegroups.com established
in Turkish and open to anyone who wants to be a member.
Between 2006-2007, with the additional fourteen new representatives,
TUMIKOM reached 42 province, 46 electoral district and thus, 384 out of 320
MP monitored.
TUMIKOM Coordination Board had a fourteen meeting at thirteen different provinces
between March 2006-March 2008. The reports about these meetings announced at
the Tumikom-TR@googlegroups.com e-mail group and www.tumikom.org
web site.
TUMIKOM Coordination Board announced seven of its working reports that, each of
them covers period of three months, on Tumikom-TR@googlegroups.com e-mail group
and www.tumikom.org web site.
Web site established in English as well as in Turkish.
As well as volunteer based work, on August 3, 2004, "Association of Monitoring
Parliamentarians and Selected Officials" established and thus, TUMIKOM got a
legal entity and the institutionalization process began and still continues.
TUMIKOM pioneered forming the world voters movement and calling for a electorate day.
In the international meeting with the activist from different part of the world
in Scotland-Glasgow on May 2007, this initiative called as the "Global Voters
Initiative".
TUMIKOM Activities Between 2003-2007
1- First national organization of TUMIKOM was about given training on computer
programme that would help to monitoring MPs on national scale.
(September, 4/5, 2003, Antalya)
2- TUMIKOM announced its First National Report about 320 MP in 30 provinces,
32 electorate districts on its first foundation day. (June 1, 2004-Ankara)
3- TUMIKOM's second National Report was about 550 MPs and the parliament.
With this report TUMIKOM broke a new ground in Turkey and the world. It proved
to electorate of Turkey and the world that individual MPs could also be monitored
as well as the parliament. (August 2, 2005-Ankara)
4- Attending the meeting organized by Parliamentary Democracy Committee Leadership,
called "Relation between Electorate and MPs, Parliamentary Committee Regulation
and Functions of Personnel in the parliament" with their invitation and declaring
the opinion of TUMIKOM about performance increasing methods for MPs and parliament
in general. (April, 13 2005-Ankara)
5- Seventh National Summit of TUMIKOM, March 2006, Denizli: In this summit,
there had been an agreement about the new perspectives and projects. Instead of
"Central Secretariat", the definition of "National Coordination Committee";
instead of "MİKOM" which was used for local organizational units, the definition
of "TUMIKOM Volunteer Province Representation"; instead of "TUMIKOM Term Speaker",
the definition of "TUMIKOM General Coordinator" have been accepted. According
to this new organizational structure, three of the National Coordination Committee
members were elected as Fazlı GÜRCAN (Denizli) and Nurettin AKBAŞ (İzmir) and
General Coordinator Mustafa DURNA, whereas the other two members of Coordination
Committee would be on rotative base and volunteer representatives would be the
temporary members of the coordination committee for three-months period.
Mustafa DURNA has been elected as General Coordinator. (March 25-26, 2006-Denizli)
6- On demand of Democracy Committee Leadership, written suggestion is given on
issues such as, "Relations between electorate and MPs, performances of
parliamentary committee and functions of personnel in the parliament" and
announced to press by TUMIKOM. (April, 17 2006)
7- TUMIKOM's Third National Report was about 550 MPs and the parliament.
(September 7, 2006-Ankara)
8- On demand of students of Arhus University, International Politics section,
in Denmark, TUMIKOM organized introductory meeting in Istanbul. The meeting
presented in English and was about Turkish democracy and parliamentary system.
9-Training given to TUMIKOM volunteer district representatives about increasing
performances by the collaboration of NDI and TUMIKOM. (November 25-26, 2006-Ankara)
10- Training given to TUMIKOM executives about creating the resources by NDI-TUMIKOM
collaboration. (February 3, 2007-Ankara)
11- There had been a meeting organized by NDI for introducing TUMIKOM to 17 members
of different international organizations. (April 3, 2007-Ankara)
12- "TUMIKOM Eighth National Summit" organized in Antalya.
(May 12-13, 2007-Antalya)
13- On July 22, 2007 at the early election of MPs, TUMIKOM published a leaflet
on issues like, transparency, political ethic and democracy and mentioned the
lack of them in parties election declaration and gave its suggestion on these
issues. (May 17, 2007)
14- "Ten Promises" report which is given to TUMIKOM before the election on
November 3, 2002, by AKP is published during AKP's 58th and 59th government.
Thus, TUMIKOM is broken a new ground and created a new tradition in Turkey's
democratic life. ( July 5, 2007-Istanbul)
15-Ten new questions asked to fifteen political parties by TUMIKOM about
"Turkey's democratic process, transparency and political ethic" under the title
of "Ten promises given to electorate" and they announced to the public and
the press . (July 7, 2007)
16- "TUMIKOM Fourth National Report" is published about 550 MPs and the parliament.
(July 12, 2007-Ankara)
17- The report about early MPs general election on July 22, 2007 is published by
TUMIKOM. (August 22, 2007)
18-TUMIKOM participated in the meeting, called as "NGO's Participation to Legislative
Process: Searching for a New System" which organized under the auspices
of speakership, YasaDer and Secretary of Parliament. ( November, 19, 2007-Ankara)
19- The report published about the duties and the responsibilities of women MPs
in the 23rd Term with comparative to men MPs. ( December 5, 2007)
All the monitoring reports and activities of TUMIKOM is published in Turkish
as well as in English in the web site, www.tumikom.org. Via web site, information
about TUMIKOM's activities could be obtained by the media, individuals and the
other institutions.
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