The shooting of President Laurent Kabila in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, merely symbolises a larger political demise which took place last year: the effective death of the country of the Congo as a whole.
Whoever succeeds Kabila is unlikely to be able to reverse the collapse of the country into a number of separate geopolitical entities under the political tutelage, and economic exploitation, of near neighbours.
Two wars - the first which installed Kabila in 1997 after deposing President Mobutu, the second, since 1998, which has challenged his presidency - have effectively dismembered this vast, mineral-rich Central African nation. During these wars, several million Congolese have died.
The national territory has, since 1998, been divided into four parts: Kabila-controlled (in the west, around the capital), Rwandan-controlled (the far east), Ugandan-controlled (the north-east) and a portion controlled by Ugandan-backed MLC rebels (the north-west).
One reading of the shooting of Kabila (confusion remains as to whether he is dead or alive) suggests that he has paid the ultimate price for his continuing inability to guarantee the territorial unity of the country that most Congolese still crave. He failed even with military backing from Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Chad in what is Africa's first major regional war.
Kabila rose to power in 1997 by fluke, when the several factions in the anti-Mobutu rebellion required a compromise candidate for leader.
The rebellion against him in 1998, perversely and conveniently, bolstered popular support for him at a moment when otherwise it might have been on the wane. But his overall performance has been lacklustre.
While Kabila's immediate circle in Kinshasa continue to bluff about the future, it is clear that some form of succession is under way. The most likely successor is Gaetan Kakudji, current Interior Minister, Kabila's nephew and the regime's strongman, who lived for many years in Belgium.
However, senior army figures will also be conducting a rapid evaluation of their own future career options.
Whoever does seize the reins of power in Kinshasa, however, will inherit a demoralised and moribund territory. Without publicly admitting it, the international community had effectively recognised the country's partition into four units by the middle of last year.
Even in the scenario then being discussed, Kabila was unlikely to hold on to Kinshasa, but rather to move his base to the mineral-rich southern part of the country - Shaba, formerly known as Katanga. It is the region from where he hails and where he would enjoy most popular support.
He would cede Kinshasa and its surroundings to Jean-Pierre Bemba and his Ugandan-backed MLC rebels, who continue to make considerable military advances in the direction of the capital.
If Kabila's nephew, Kakudji, does take over, Shaba/Katanga may also be his ultimate option since he is also Katangese.
Those neighbours - Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe - who now exert vice-like grips on considerable diamond and other mineral wealth in the Congo will not easily surrender what they hold.
In fact, given the present power vacuum, it is just as possible that the three main rebel movements - eastern (RCD-Goma), north-eastern (RCD-ML) and north-western (MLC) - will capitalise on the prevailing uncertainty in order to relaunch their war towards Kinshasa with renewed vigour.
For now, what can be said with certainty is that the present agony of political impasse will continue for the ordinary Congolese.
Stephen Jackson is director of the International Famine Centre, UCC.