Last Saturday morning, many people in Uganda woke up early to follow the debate between the USA candidates. Those who did not rise early still caught up over the next couple of days as the debate was being replayed, thanks to the availability of international television channels all over the place.

Just like many, many democratic practices we have borrowed from other countries in the development of our system over time, this debate could do our country some good, considering the style of electoral presidential campaigns we have heard since independence.

Watching Obama and McCain meeting verbally face to face, one could not help but marvel at the major opportunity this debate offers the voters to compare the way the two candidates intend to lead the USA. After months of name calling and malicious talk between the two major camps- they do have it in America as well- the candidates soberly and respectfully tackle the issues that really matter to the citizens.

You can rewrite the script for the last four major elections and the result would be interesting. For the 1980 disputed election that led to the five- year war in Luwero, you would see Milton Obote and Paul Ssemogerere discussing the role of the Tanzanian army in post-Amin Uganda instead of dwelling on who had more generals in the 1979 war. They would debate how to build the national army and voters would not waste time arguing over which candidate's wife had attained higher education.

In 1996, there actually was an attempt, the first and last, to organise a presidential debate. Candidates Museveni and Ssemogerere were expected to debate at the Kampala Conference Centre and multitudes had turned up for the highly billed event.

It was Mr Museveni's campaign task force that killed the debate when they said their candidate had other things to do. Otherwise it would have been a dignified ending to the acrimonious campaign which was dominated by images of skulls of our people who were killed in Luwero.

The skulls were intended to work against Ssemogerere and they actually did, though his camp were major victims of the Luwero massacres. If the debate had taken place, may be Ssemogerere would have had the chance to dissociate his campaign from the skulls, and would also have certainly refuted claims in the government media that he intended to return Obote and appoint his key men to key ministerial portfolios.

In 2001, a debate between candidates Museveni and Besigye would have played an even bigger role in the election. This is because by then virtually every voter had access to a radio.

What the local stations would have done would be to make simultaneous translations as the two candidates exchanged over the professionalisation of the army and increasing government sponsorship of students at the public universities. These were the issues of the day, but were quite far from the minds of the voters as they went to cast their ballots.

The 2006 debate would even have been more viable, considering the improved technological reach then attained by the country. May be we would not have had the two candidates standing next to each other, since the chemistry between had worsened over the previous five years. Besigye had spent four of them in exile and nearly half of the campaign period in prison. So the debate would most probably be conducted via satellite link.

In 2011, attempts to restart the debate should be supported. One thing you can be sure of: It would certainly matter to us than the one of the Americans.