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"TEN QUESTIONS - TEN PORMISES" PRESS STATEMENT

Before the election of 3 November 2002, TUMIKOM asked ten questions to the leading political parties of Turkey. On behalf of AKP (Justice and Development Party), Vice Chairman Abdullah Gül answered these ten questions. TUMIKOM evaluated these "Ten Promises" after the end of the period of AKP government and on July 5th 2007, announced its analysis to the public opinion with a press statement. At the same time, TUMIKOM announced the new "Ten Questions" about "Democratization, Transparency and Ethic in Politics" submitted to political parties which will join the election of July 22nd, 2007. REPORT OF AKP'S TEN PROMISES* The ten questions which had been asked by TUMIKOM to the political parties have been answered by Mr. Abdullah Gul on behalf of AKP by a fax message with the signature of "Vice Chairman on behalf of AKP". After the elections of 3 November 2002, AKP came to the power. Therefore, Mr. Abdullah Gul's answers have been evaluated as AKP's promises to the voters. 1. Question: Will your party support and vote for the democratization of the Political Parties Law? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: Political parties are the civil organizations which carries the people's economical, social and cultural demands to the state and demands to take the state power to make the government mechanism works according to people's needs. Within this perspective of carrying people's agenda to the state's agenda, AKP will change the Political Parties Law and will make it compatible with contemporary democratic perspective. (-) 2. Question: Will your party support and vote for the Political Ethics Law which is including the cancellation all of the political immunity of the MPs other then the right of privacy born of the activities in the parliament? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: Our party will cancel all of the constitutional obstacles in front of the trialability of parliamentarians and the ministers; will handle all of the privileges and right of privacy of the state officers together; and will make these privileges restricted with the right of privacy born of the activities of the parliament and the speeches of the members in the parliament. (-) 3. Question: Will your party support and vote for the Political Ethics Law, which aims the democratization of the election system? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: According to the constitution, election system has to provide the justice in the representation and stability in the governmental structure. Within this perspective, all kind of regulations will be made to ensure people's will's reflection to the state governance. (-) 4. Question: Will your party support and vote for the Political Ethics Law, which says MPs must hand over their private businesses to the administration of the officers assigned by the court during the membership of the parliament; MPs cannot start any business to make profit while they are a member of the parliament, parliamentarians can not make change in the regulations which directly effect their own salaries? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: Politics is getting dirtier, political area is getting narrower. One of our main purposes is to make politicians and the politics prestigious again. With this purpose, all kind of regulations will be realized. (-) 5. Question: Will your party support and vote for the law which brings transparency to the governments works, decisions and expenditures and makes the people's access to these information possible? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: As it said in our election declaration, we will make all kind of effort to get transparency in the every institution of the state. We will try to generalize the awareness of the right of obtaining the information, issue a "law of the people's right to obtaining information", and will ensure that public services to provide performance reports to the public. (+) 6. Question: Will your party support and vote for the law which makes it obligatory for parliamentarians and ministers to declare their affidavits of means? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: As it said in our party program, we will ensure that the declare of affidavit of the parliamentarians and ministers will be provided to the public's audition transparently. (?) 7. Question: Will your party support and vote for a law which makes a regulation to make it accessible publicly the decisions of the commission that shows if a member of the parliament joining the session, and the law which also makes a regulation to publish the votes of parliamentarians at the end of every day? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: AK party has a good performance to ensure all of the parliament members' participation to the sessions. We will continue this effort from now on. Parliamentarians will not only participate the sessions, but they will inform voters in their election areas about the activities of the parliament periodically. (-) 8. Question: What is the total election budget of your party including all kind of contributions? What is the percentage of the aid from the state in this budget? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: Since the establishment of our party, we are publishing our income-expenses statement every three months at our web site at www.akparti.com.tr. Ak Party is the first and the only political party in Turkey which publish its budget. Our latest income-expenses statement is attached. (+) 9. Question: Did your party accept any contributions for election budget? If so, can you give us a list of the person and the institutions who gave you a contribution more than 1000 YTL? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: In the income-expenses statement which is attached, you can see where our party obtained the income, and how this income had been expensed. (+) 10. Question: If your party comes to the state power, what will be the first three issues of your agenda? Abdullah GÜL, on behalf of AK Party: When AK Party will come to power, it will struggle against the corruption by taking measures on restructuring the state, providing transparency in public administration, passing beyond the centralized structure, increasing the social control on and participation in the administration, implementing the reforms in law and justice system which will provide the full justice in time and etc. Secondly, the struggle against poverty will be held with a reform program which is going to be oriented to restructure the public administration, repair the conditions for the local and foreign investors, accelerate the privatization, improve the economic sector and social security systems and increase the effectiveness in agriculture. Thirdly, AK Party plans to realize a democratization movement about realization of a democratic administration which is processing perfect and depending on human rights, improving the representative democracy towards participative democracy by opening the ways of pluralist and participative democratic political process to NGOs. Thereby, both our people will reach the modernized democratic administration that they deserve and also, the barriers existing in the process of entering to EU will be overcome speedily. (?) *These ten questions have been asked in a round table conference about transparency and ethics in the politics with the participation of the leading political parties and the representatives of the civil society institutions. The round table conference has been organized by Transparency International - Turkey and National Democratic Institute in 19th of September 2002 at Ankara Hilton Hotel. ATTANDED POLITICAL PARTY REPRESENTATIVES On behalf of AKP; Abdullah GÜL On behalf of ANAP;Berna TÜRKİLİ On behalf of CHP; Oya ARASLI On behalf of DYP; Turhan GÜVEN On behalf of DSP; Aydın TÜMEN On behalf of MHP; Şevket Bülent YAHNİCİ On behalf of YTP; Ercan KARAKAŞ NAMES OF THE NGOs THAT WERE ATTENDED TO THE PANEL Bee Movement, Association of Committees for Monitoring Parliament and Elected Officials (TUMIKOM), The Association for Supporting the male Candidates (Ka-der) The associations For Liberal Thoughts, initiative for Clean Policy, Association for Social, Economical and Political Researches (TESAV), TÜSİAD, Association for Turkish Democracy (TDV), TÜSES. THE TEN QUESTIONS - WILL BE ASKED TO POLITICAL PARTIES, WILL JOIN TO THE ELECTION ON JULY 22ND - ABOUT "DEMOCRATIZATION, POLITICAL ETHICS AND TRANSPARENCY" 1. Question: Will your party try to democratize the Political Parties Law and will support and vote for legal regulations to a- let the alliances between political parties, b- make it obligatory to determine candidates with pre-election with the participation of party members, kılacak, c- pmake it illegal to collect Money from the candidates in any form, to get the entrance of the candidates to the pre-election in equal conditions, d- to end appointments and quota of the center in order to improve democracy within the party. 2. Question: Will your party try to democratize Election Laws to get justice in the representation and will your party support and vote for legal regulations a- for canceling %10 election threshold in the elections b- for reassign the number of the parliaments of the cities according to the number of the voters 3. Question: Will your party support and vote for legal regulations to cancel all kind of rights of the immunity of MPs other then the one born of the speech? 4. Question: Will your party try to ensure that members of the parliament have to assign the administration of their private businesses to the officers during they are the members of the parliament, and the parliamentarians can not start any other business during this period? Will your party support and vote for a Political Ethics law to a- prevent parliamentarians to make any legal regulations which directly effect their salaries, b- regulate that additions to the salaries of the parliamentarians cannot excess the rate of the addition of the public workers' salaries? 5. Question: Will your party support and vote for the Political Ethics Law which propose that MPs and the ministers have to declare their affidavit of means and the election expenditures with the sources at the end of every legislative period? 6. Question: Will your party support and vote for the Political Ethics Law which propose that political parties cannot nominate any candidate who are in trial for murder, bruise, bribe, racket, unlawful actions, infamous and organized crimes unless they are getting clean on the trial? 7. Question: Will your party support and vote for a law which propose that the table shows the participation of the parliamentarians to the sessions of the parliament and the commissions will be published within 48 hours and the information about commission decisions, the color of the votes of the parliamentarians and the records of the parliament sessions will be published within 24 hours? 8. Question: Will your party support and vote for a Political Ethic Law which propose that the state aid to the political parties must be made equally to ensure the elective competition between political parties can be in equal conditions? 9. Question: Will your party support and vote for the Political Ethic Law which propose that it is obligatory to publish the list of the people and the institution who made a donation more than 1000 YTL to a political party? 10. Questions: If your party will come to power, what is going to be the first three issues of your party? TÜMİKOM SUPPORTS DEMOCRACY