TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A drawing was held on Monday (Dec. 11) to determine the order in which the three presidential candidates will be listed on the ballot in the upcoming 2024 Taiwan presidential election.
At 10 a.m. on Monday, the Central Election Commission (CEC) held an event where representatives of the three candidates participated in a drawing to determine their official presidential election ballot numbers, reported CNA. The drawing was overseen by CEC Chairperson Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) and CEC Vice Chairperson Macoto Chen (陳朝建).
The election of the 16th president and vice president will be held on Jan. 13, 2024. Three parties have registered presidential and vice presidential candidates, including the Taiwan People's Party's (TPP) Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Cynthia Wu (吳欣盈), the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), and the Kuomintang's (KMT) Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) and Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康).
After placing three sets of cards with ballot numbers into the drawing box, CEC staff conducted the drawing based on the order in which each group of candidates had registered. Hsiao was the first to draw on behalf of the DPP ticket as they had registered the earliest.
When Hsiao drew the ballot number "2," she said, "Both virtues steadily moving forward!" The character "te" (德) in Lai's name means "virtue," while the character "Bi" (美) in Hsiao's name means "beauty," but when combined with "te" it also means virtue (美德), which is at the beginning of the slogan Hsiao called out.
Ko stepped forward next and drew the number "1." Supporters waiting outside the event quickly affixed the number to placards and yelled, "Take a chance without hesitation. No. 1 is your best choice."
Lastly, Lee Li-chen (李利貞), the spokesperson for Hou's campaign office, drew for the KMT ticket. After drawing the number "3," Lee shouted the slogan, "Vote 3 for president. He will be your solid support."
When interviewed by the media, Ko said that his public relations department came up with slogans for different numbers, but that he is a practitioner of Western medicine and does not pay attention to such things. "It's just a number. There must always be a number for everyone to choose when voting," Ko said.