The death of Raila Odinga, Kenya’s former prime minister and most enduring opposition figure, closes a defining chapter in the nation’s political life. For more than 40 years, Odinga embodied Kenya’s democratic struggles, from detention under an autocratic regime to decades of electoral contests that reshaped the country’s political landscape.

Fighting relentlessly for institutional reform, Odinga’s activism helped deliver two of Kenya’s most consequential political transformations: the legalization of multiparty politics and the promulgation of the 2010 constitution. Odinga’s balancing act as both a firebrand of resistance and an architect of reconciliation became the defining paradox of his legacy, leaving supporters and critics alike to debate whether he was a revolutionary who compromised or a pragmatist who never lost his radical edge.

The death of Raila Odinga, Kenya’s former prime minister and most enduring opposition figure, closes a defining chapter in the nation’s political life. For more than 40 years, Odinga embodied Kenya’s democratic struggles, from detention under an autocratic regime to decades of electoral contests that reshaped the country’s political landscape.

Fighting relentlessly for institutional reform, Odinga’s activism helped deliver two of Kenya’s most consequential political transformations: the legalization of multiparty politics and the promulgation of the 2010 constitution. Odinga’s balancing act as both a firebrand of resistance and an architect of reconciliation became the defining paradox of his legacy, leaving supporters and critics alike to debate whether he was a revolutionary who compromised or a pragmatist who never lost his radical edge.

Born into a prominent political family, Odinga inherited both privilege and burden. His father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was Kenya’s first vice president and an early critic of post-independence authoritarianism. Raila Odinga would take up that mantle, enduring six years in detention without trial after being accused of involvement in the failed 1982 coup against the government of President Daniel arap Moi.

His fight for democracy did not end with his release: In the years that followed, Odinga was arrested and detained several times during the nationwide push for multiparty politics, a struggle that would eventually bring down Kenya’s one-party system. After his release, Odinga briefly went into exile in Norway, where he rallied international attention to Kenya’s human rights abuses and the suppression of dissent under Moi’s regime.

Odinga campaigns in Nairobi in 1997.Alexander Joe/AFP via Getty Images

Those who were close to him say that period steeled his political convictions.

“He didn’t see it as punishment but as a sacrifice, an opportunity to solidify his belief in a fairer, more just Kenyan society,” Willis Otieno, who served as Odinga’s presidential campaign manager in 2017, told me. For Odinga, that struggle became the thread running through his entire political life. “He was a true social democrat who believed in social justice and equity for all,” Otieno said.

Kalonzo Musyoka, Kenya’s vice president from 2008 to 2013, was Odinga’s longtime ally and his running mate in the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections. “He was a real fighter, never afraid of taking the hard decisions,” Musyoka told me. “His days in detention gave him a particular character and perspective … he was enigmatic.”

The path to Kenya’s 2010 constitution ran through the country’s bloodiest political crisis. In December 2007, Odinga faced incumbent President Mwai Kibaki in an election that was marred by........

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