After a police officer was coaxed into organizing an escort, dozens of travelers piled into cars that raced one another down the deserted boulevards at terrifying speed, tucking in behind an enormous armored police truck that blasted its horn and swiveled its water cannons at anyone who approached.

The wreckage stretched for miles. The bitter smell of burned rubber tinged the air. Concrete barriers in the middle of the road were scrawled with obscenities cursing President Joseph Kabila.

The Constitution requires Mr. Kabila to step down at the end of the year, but nothing has been done to prepare for an election.

Many Congolese fear that Mr. Kabila is trying to wiggle out of term limits like several of his presidential cohorts across Africa and hold onto power indefinitely. Congo has a brutal history going back to the 19th century, when it was colonized. Not once has it had a peaceful transfer of power.

On Monday morning, opposition supporters met at a statue of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister, who was assassinated in 1961. The protesters had worked out a plan with Kinshasa’s municipal government to send emissaries from a slum into downtown Kinshasa to deliver a letter to the election commission calling for a clear path forward. The plan was for the march to be peaceful. It didn’t quite work out that way.