Government officials and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday were at odds over the performance of Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), who in March vowed that he would resign if he did not improve public order within the next six months.
On March 15, Su put his political career on the line, saying that he would resign and withdraw from politics for good if the crime rate did not drop within six months. The deadline is on Friday.
KMT legislators called a press conference yesterday demanding Su's resignation for being unable to deliver on his promise. The KMT legislators said that three different surveys had shown that more than half of the respondents didn't believe that public order had improved.
"According to the three surveys, the rate of people's satisfaction with public order has been on the downside, proving that Su has failed to keep his promise," said Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), head of the KMT's policy coordination department.
One survey conducted by Shih Hsin University said that the public's satisfaction rate had fallen to 30.2 percent this month from 33.2 percent in March while the dissatisfaction rate rose from 50.4 percent in March to 58.8 percent, Tseng said.
However, Vice Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) yesterday told legislators that the improvement in public order had been satisfactory over the past six months.
"Public order has been slowly improving, even though there is still room for improvement," Chien said during a meeting with Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislators.
Chien issued a report which illustrated that much improvement had been made in public order around the nation in eight key areas.
"In terms of major criminal cases, the incident rate between March and September fell by 15 percent while the clear-up rate increased by 5.08 percent compared with the same period last year," said Hung Sheng-kun, deputy director-general of National Police Agency.
Hung added, "Meanwhile, there was significant reduction (32.36 percent) in the rate of automobile theft and a 21.11 percent reduction in motorcycle theft over the same period when compared with the same period of last year."
But the officials' reports didn't convince TSU legislators of Su's achievement in combatting crime, with TSU legislative caucus whip Liao Pen-yen (
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