But three main television channels were meanwhile airing unofficial tallies representing more than a third of the 8 million to 10 million ballots thought to have been cast.
The latest report from KTN gave Odinga 2.59 million votes to 1.66 million for Kibaki, while NTV had Odinga leading with 1.84 million votes compared with 1.22 million for the president.
An exit poll by a non-governmental organisation put Kibaki ahead. It was removed from the group's Web site later with the authors saying they did not want to cause confusion.
'ENVY OF AFRICA'
The ECK said the turnout looked to be the highest since multi-party politics was reintroduced in 1992. Observers said voting had gone smoothly, despite sporadic violence and allegations of ballot fraud by both sides.
"The ECK has run elections with efficiency and independence that should be the envy of the rest of Africa," the Daily Nation newspaper said in an editorial.
In an apparently isolated incident, police fired in the air to disperse youths accusing Education Minister George Saitoti, a Kibaki ally and former vice-president, of trying to rig the parliamentary vote in Kajiado, south of Nairobi.
Numerous well-known faces lost their seats, including Kenya's Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, the vice-president, and 10 government ministers, local media said.
Kibaki, 76, wants a second five-year term before retiring to his highland tea farm after a political career that has spanned Kenya's post-independence history.
With a record of average economic growth of 5 percent, he has the support of his Kikuyu tribe, Kenya's largest and most economically powerful, but trailed narrowly in pre-vote polls.
Odinga, a 62-year-old former political prisoner educated in communist East Germany, wants to be the first in his Luo tribe to take the country's top job.
That was the unrealised dream of his father, Kenya's first vice-president, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, whose falling out with founding president Jomo Kenyatta seeded the Luo-Kikuyu rivalry.
Should he win, Odinga will have to enlist Kikuyu support and allay business fears that he is a left-wing radical.
