CAIRO – In front of tens of thousands of cheering supporters, Egypt’s first Islamist and civilian president-elect vowed Friday to fight for his authority and symbolically read an oath of office on Cairo’s Tahrir Square on the eve of his official inauguration.

Mohammed Morsi’s strongly worded speech was a show of defiance as he gears up for a power struggle with the country’s ruling generals, who passed a constitutional declaration taking over major presidential powers in the days before election results were announced.

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Egypt’s President-elect Mohammed Morsi waves to tens of thousands of mostly Islamist supporters at Tahrir Square, the focal point of the Egyptian uprising, in Cairo on Friday. The Associated Press

“Everybody is hearing me now. The government, the military and the police … No power above this power,” he said as the crowd roared. “I reaffirm to you I will not give up any of the president’s authorities. I can’t afford to do this. I don’t have that right to that.”

“You are the source of legitimacy and whoever is protected by anyone else will lose,” he told his supporters.

He also addressed popular demands, vowing to work for the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheik jailed in the United States for a plot to blow up New York landmarks, as well as detained Egyptian protesters facing military tribunals.

“I will do my best to free all detainees, including Dr. Omar Abdel-Rahman,” he said, pointing to a group of protesters holding a poster of the spiritual leader of men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Supporters have called for the sheik to be repatriated to Egypt on humanitarian grounds.

Morsi, a 60-year-old U.S.-trained engineer, narrowly defeated Ahmed Shafiq, Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister and a former air force general, in a runoff that deeply polarized the nation.

His victory has given Islamists a new boost after they overcame decades of suppression and arrests under Mubarak’s secular regime to become Egypt’s most influential post-revolutionary political force. However, the military has fought to check the Brotherhood’s rise and maintain its hold on the reins of power.

At one point, Morsi opened his jacket to show the crowd he wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest, saying he “fears no one but God.”

Many protesters had called for Morsi to hold his swearing-in ceremony in the square, the epicenter of mass protests that ousted Mubarak, but the military generals said it must be held in front of a high court, in the absence of a parliament. The ceremony was scheduled to be held today.

However, he read an informal oath during his speech to the delight of the crowd. Many chanted “We love you Morsi” and “Oh marshal tell the truth, Morsi is your president, or not,” referring to the head of the ruling military panel, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

The ruling generals have promised to transfer power to an elected president by Sunday. But they also have given themselves sweeping powers that undercut the authority of the president.

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