Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi (born 19 November 1954, Cairo) is an Egyptian politician and former field marshal who has served as President of Egypt since 8 June 2014. Trained at the Egyptian Military Academy and later at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College and the US Army War College, he rose through military intelligence and was appointed Director of Military Intelligence under Hosni Mubarak.

After the January 2011 uprising, Sisi was named Minister of Defence and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in August 2012 by President Mohamed Morsi. Following mass protests organised by the Tamarod movement, Sisi announced on 3 July 2013 that the military was removing Morsi from office and suspending the constitution. The subsequent dispersal of pro-Morsi sit-ins at Rabaa al-Adawiya and al-Nahda squares on 14 August 2013 killed hundreds of demonstrators; Human Rights Watch described it as one of the largest single-day killings of protesters in recent history.

Sisi resigned from the military in March 2014 to run for president, winning that May with an officially reported 96.9% of the vote. He was re-elected in 2018 against a single token challenger, and again in December 2023 with a reported 89.6% share. A 2019 constitutional referendum extended presidential terms from four to six years and allowed him to potentially remain in office until 2030.

His tenure has been marked by:

• A sweeping crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, designated a terrorist organisation in December 2013.
• Major infrastructure projects, including the New Suez Canal expansion (2015) and the New Administrative Capital east of Cairo.
• An IMF Extended Fund Facility programme and successive currency devaluations of the Egyptian pound.
• Close security ties with Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and a 2020 maritime border agreement with Greece.

Rights organisations including Amnesty International have documented mass detentions, restrictions on civil society, and curbs on independent media under his government.