  The model of population protocols refers to a large collection of simple
indistinguishable entities, frequently called {\em agents}. The agents
communicate and perform computation through pairwise interactions. We study
fast and space efficient leader election in population of cardinality $n$
governed by a random scheduler, where during each time step the scheduler
uniformly at random selects for interaction exactly one pair of agents.
  We propose the first $o(\log^2 n)$-time leader election protocol. Our
solution operates in expected parallel time $O(\log n\log\log n)$ which is
equivalent to $O(n \log n\log\log n)$ pairwise interactions. This is the
fastest currently known leader election algorithm in which each agent utilises
asymptotically optimal number of $O(\log\log n)$ states.
  The new protocol incorporates and amalgamates successfully the power of
assorted {\em synthetic coins} with variable rate {\em phase clocks}.
