Last week local elections took place up and down the UK.   As local elections go, I know these caused more of a stir than most because of the UK Independence Party’s strong showing.  The elections also prompted much personal interest for me as this was the first time I rolled up my sleeves and got involved in political campaigning in the UK.

Coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, elections and the electoral process are in their infancy.  Since our nation’s chaotic independence from Belgium in 1960, there have been only two multiparty national elections.  The one-party government under the 32 year rule of Mobuto Sese Seko destroyed any nascent democratic process at independence.  The civil war following Mobuto’s flight from power killed an estimated five million Congolese and further denied my population of both democratic and human rights.

We know, of course, the 2006 and 2011 presidential elections were flawed, marred by violence perpetrated by government and opposition supporters alike and, in the eyes of international observers such as the International Crisis Group and the Carter Centre, discredited.  But votes were cast and a semblance of a pluralist and participatory democracy in a country where it has not previously existed is beginning.  Clearly, the growing pains for the DRC are very real and the journey ahead remains long, bumpy and unpredictable.

So my mission over the past four weeks was to go out and learn about local campaigning and to understand what can be transferred from electioneering in the UK with a view to helping strengthen the prospects for democracy in the DRC.  I joined Liberal Democrat activists in urban Birmingham and rural Somerset.

I observed how the local party machine works, and learnt about the motivations of candidates to stand for local office.  I absorbed the electoral literature and the local campaign themes.  In the DRC manifestos and political platforms are premised on a disparate set of policies and beliefs; localism matters but has rarely found a voice or a role so far.  I also joined candidates and activists on their delivery rounds — in sun, rain and hail.  Ensuring the leaflet is put right through the letter box and not left hanging out (in case the “opposition” remove them) matters, I learnt; and dogs in front gardens can be both welcoming and not.   I also understand why engaging people on the doorstep can be so powerful.  In the DRC, electoral activism is largely about holding meetings and rallies in public spaces; taking the message to the doorstep may seem obvious to you, but it is a novel concept to us in the DRC.

Tragedy and conflict may characterise the DRC’s narrative in recent times, but hope remains for a better future for our children, a future which safeguards equality, justice, as well as democracy and human rights.  Hope can carry people a long way, especially as they look to the long process of building a nation.  But to do so, we look to the UK and the European Union to help us by means of transfer of knowledge and expertise to help establish values and the processes that are needed to underpin them, both top down and, more importantly, bottom up.

There is much I continue to learn about democracy and elections.  Perhaps the most curious lesson for me is that I met many people campaigning who were not going to vote.  Some expressed hostility to politicians (we hear that in the DRC!).  Many more were indifferent.  Some had never voted.

Waste is something I see all around me living in the UK. I am all too aware of it since little is wasted in the DRC. We cannot afford to.  But wasting a vote when so many still do not have the right to a legitimate vote in deciding their political leadership is the ultimate act in squandering a national legacy.

* David Lloyd Mayala is a Congolese student at the University of Wolverhampton and a Lib Dem member. He is President of the DRC Youth Movement for Democracy and Human Rights in the UK.