On January 26, 2001, leading politicians in Democratic Republic of Congo picked 29-year-old soldier Joseph Kabila to succeed his father president Laurent-Desire Kabila who had been assassinated by a bodyguard.
Fifteen years on, the ruler is defying the constitution and refusing to stand down as his presidential term draws to an end.
- From war to the polls -
When Kabila became president, his central African country had been plagued by warfare since August 1998. Government troops backed by Angola, Chad, Namibia and Zimbabwe were fighting rebel groups backed by Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda.
A power-sharing deal to end the Second Congo War was signed in Pretoria on December 17, 2002 by the Kinshasa government, rebel movements, the political opposition and civil society groups. Foreign troops withdrew by October.
In July 2006, Kabila was declared winner of the first free presidential election for 41 years, seeing off Jean-Pierre Bemba -- an ex-rebel leader and businessman, who was jailed for 18 years in June 2016 by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Clashes in Kinshasa between the army and Bemba's guards claimed 300 lives in March 2007.
- Endless strife in the east -
Conflict continued in the east involving numerous forces including Hutu fighters who fled neighbouring Rwanda in 1994 -- after the genocide that mainly targeted minority Tutsis, claiming 800,000 lives.
Congolese Tutsis led by renegade general Laurent Nkunda fought the army in late 2008 in North Kivu province, displacing at least 200,000 civilians and provoking a humanitarian crisis of "catastrophic dimensions", according to the UN.
Inter-ethnic violence and militia clashes to the northeast in Ituru led to an intervention in 2003 by a French-led European military force. Ten years later, the UN Security Council mandated a special Force Intervention Brigade with unprecedented power to take offensive action against armed groups.
On November 28, 2011, Kabila was returned to power in elections while his party won an absolute majority in parliament. Veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who came second, rejected the results. Both national and foreign observers say the polls, which were chaotic and marred by violence, were massively flawed.
In May 2012, clashes began between the army and mutineers who were members of Nkunda's movement. The new rebel force was called M23, after a failed peace deal on March 23, 2009. M23 fighters finally surrendered in December 2013 after a crushing offensive backed by UN troops.
On December 30, 2013, security forces repelled coordinated attacks against symbols of state power in Kinshasa and other cities. About 100 attackers were killed.
- 'National dialogue', no agreement -
More than a year after promising a national unity government, Kabila appointed opposition members to the cabinet on December 8, 2014.
The next month, clashes erupted in Kinshasa between security forces and demonstrators hostile to a draft law that would have enabled the head of state to extend his stay in power beyond the end of his constitutional term on December 20, 2016. Looting accompanied violence that killed between 12 and 42 people, according to different sources.
Opposition leaders called further protests in the capital on September 19-20, 2016, to give Kabila three months' notice ahead of the end of his term. Renewed violence erupted, in which several dozen people were killed.
Kabila appointed a prime minister from a minor opposition party, Samy Badibanga, on November 17 after cutting a deal with fringe parties in a "national dialogue" condemned by the main opposition coalition as a sham.
Since September, the Roman Catholic Church has sought to mediate a political transition to elections, but talks stalled and Foreign Minister Raymond Tshibanda said on December 6 that no elections would be held until April 2018.
The negotiations are due to resume on Wednesday, a day after Kabila's mandate expires, in a week that began with troops flooding the streets of the capital in an apparent bid to shore-up the president's rule.