(Reuters) - Dubbed the "kingmaker" for helping put Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki in power five years ago, Raila Odinga lost what some say was his best chance to dethrone his former ally in Kenya's Dec. 27 election.
   Final results from the Electoral Commission of Kenya gave the 62-year-old former political prisoner 4.35 million votes to Kibaki's 4.58 million.
   The narrow defeat appeared to effectively end Odinga's hopes of leading the east African country and realising a dream that eluded his late father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, a nationalist hero and vice president in Kenya's first post-independence government.
   Like his father, Odinga held a cabinet position before falling out with the president, and like his father, Odinga appeared destined to spend the remaining years of his political career in the opposition.
   Frowning and tired, Odinga accused the electoral commission on Sunday of "doctoring" the tallies in the country's closest presidential election -- and warned of grave consequences.
   Moments after his loss was announced, riots erupted in Kibera slum within Odinga's Nairobi constituency as thousands of opposition supporters went on the rampage torching shacks.
   With a flair unmatched in Kenya for rousing the masses, Odinga wooed large groups of voters beyond his traditional Luo base by playing to their disillusionment with the 76-year-old Kibaki's record on graft, security and tribalism.
   But it was not enough.
   "The presidency is something he has wanted for a long time," said George Ogola, a British-based analyst. "He would have been the kingmaker who made himself king."
   When Odinga quit the ruling party of outgoing president Daniel arap Moi in 2002 for a coalition with Kibaki, it was the masterstroke that gave the opposition its broadest ever support among the country's more than 40 tribes.
   The move sealed the defeat of Moi's KANU, which had monopolised power since independence in 1963 -- as well as Odinga's reputation for being a wily tactician.
   Critics say he is a power-hungry firebrand prone to sparking mayhem when he does not get his way, and who displayed his talent for theatrics on voting day.
   An angry Odinga stormed out of a polling station when his name did not appear on a voter register, crying foul play. A few hours, and a quick televised interview later, he was back to cast his vote, beaming and mobbed by supporters.
   
   "WARRIOR"
   Born in the deprived western Nyanza province, Odinga casts himself as a champion of the poor -- but one, critics say, with an ostentatious flourish, whose preferred mode of transport is a red Hummer for rallies and a blue Jaguar for other business.
   The family's molasses plant sits close to the shores of Lake Victoria, rising above the many mud and thatch dwellings of a region consistently ranked as one of Kenya's least developed.
   With an engineering degree from communist East Germany and a son named Fidel Castro, Odinga worked hard to prove his capitalist credentials in a country enjoying an economic resurgence after years of decline under Moi.
   His own constituency spans two worlds -- a suburb of manicured lawns and English-style mansions, and a teeming slum of open sewers and corrugated iron shacks.
   Jailed by Moi for protesting against one-party rule, Odinga lords it over his own Luo ethnic group, one of Kenya's largest, like a tribal chief, critics say. 
   It is this kind of contradiction that earned Odinga adulation and loathing alike for much of his political life.
   A burly man with a penchant for referring to himself in the third person, Odinga's brash style of leadership upset many. His close friends include Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Nigeria's former leader Olusegun Obasanjo.
   Belonging to one of Kenya's elite political dynasties, Odinga credited his father Jaramogi for instilling in him a sense of nationalism and social equality.
   Nicknamed "Agwambo" or warrior in Luo, Odinga was one of Kenya's longest serving political prisoners, spending nine years in jail -- six in solitary confinement.
   He was first detained in 1982 after Moi was nearly overthrown in a coup attempt Odinga later revealed he backed.
   "Detention is a good school. You learn to reflect and think. You also learn tolerance, to be forgiving, particularly against your adversaries," Odinga told Reuters. "You also learn time is of essence, that things should be done faster and better."