The nominations for presidential candidates were concluded yesterday, meaning that campaigns have kicked off. For the next 73 days, candidates and their agents will traverse the country soliciting for votes.

There is going to be a lot of excitement at rallies where booming music will be played and cheap liquor consumed in large amounts.

However, the campaigns for the 2006 elections can be different from the previous ones if the leaders of the political parties resolve to avoid inciting their supporters into violence.

Political leaders need to remember that it is possible to hold an election without violence. Elections are about changing leadership without using violence.

Violence during the campaigns stems out of the leaders' disrespect to the public. If political leaders did not look at the people as mere numbers of votes which are expendable if they belong to the opponent, then we would have more peaceful campaigns.

It is hoped that candidates will refrain from inciting their supporters by preaching hatred and revenge.

Last time there were attempts by supporters of an aspirant who was disqualified due to lack of academic papers, to burn the offices of the examination body, UNEB. Now that he has been successfully nominated, it is hoped he will restrain his supporters from harassing people they think have been more privileged than them.

It is also worrying to hear that some characters who shamelessly abused Ugandans by flogging them in the last elections are already itching to participate again in the campaigns.

There is for instance no record that the murderous driver who maliciously ploughed a truck through a crowd of people who were waiting for their candidate on Jinja road in the last campaigns was ever punished. Nor is there any assurance that the shadowy Sergeant Seggane who dipped an MP in the lake for supporting a different candidate will not do the same, or worse, this time.

It is chilling that some candidates seek to lead people whom they do not value; whom they hold in low esteem. Elections are a very expensive affair and the exercise should be worth the billions being spent.

If the election results are going to depend on which candidate has more goons to beat up voters, and guns to scare thespirit out of them, then are they worth the expenditure?