Abd el-Fattah el-Sisi (born 19 November 1954) is an Egyptian politician and retired military officer who has been serving as the sixth and current president of Egypt since 2014. Before retiring as a general in the Egyptian military in 2014, Sisi served as Egypt's deputy prime minister from 2013 to 2014, minister of defense from 2012 to 2013, and director of military intelligence from 2010 to 2012. He was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal in January 2014.
Sisi was born in Cairo in 1954. As a young man, he joined the Egyptian Army and held a post in Saudi Arabia before enrolling in the Egyptian Army's Command and Staff College. Sisi received additional training at the Joint Services Command and Staff College in the United Kingdom in 1992, and at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 2006. Before becoming director of military intelligence in 2010, he served as a mechanized infantry commander. He never saw active combat throughout his military service.
After the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and election of Mohamed Morsi to the Egyptian presidency, Sisi was appointed Minister of Defense by Morsi on 12 August 2012, replacing the Hosni Mubarak-era Hussein Tantawi. As the minister of defense, and ultimately commander in chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Sisi was involved in overthrowing then-president Morsi on 3 July 2013, in response to large-scale protests against Morsi's rule. Morsi was replaced by an interim president, Adly Mansour, who appointed a new cabinet. Demonstrations, sit-ins, and violent clashes between supporters of Morsi and security forces followed, culminating in the dispersal in August 2013 of pro-Morsi sit-ins which resulted in violent clashes that led to hundreds of deaths.
On 26 March 2014, in response to calls from supporters to run for the presidency, Field Marshal el-Sisi retired from his military career and announced that he would run as a candidate in the 2014 presidential election. The election, held between 26 and 28 May, featured one opponent, Hamdeen Sabahi, saw 47% participation by eligible voters, and resulted in Sisi winning in a landslide victory with 97% of the vote. Sisi was sworn into office as President of Egypt on 8 June 2014.
Sisi leads a government in Egypt which has been described as authoritarian by observers, and some elements of his rule have been described as even more draconian than that of prior authoritarian leader Mubarak. In the 2018 presidential election, Sisi faced minimal opposition from rival Moussa Mostafa Moussa, who had supported Sisi's 2014 bid, after the military arrest of Lieutenant General Sami Anan who was barred from running for president due to still actively serving in the military at the time, threats made to Ahmed Shafik with corruption charges and an alleged sex tape, and the withdrawal of Khaled Ali and Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat due to the overwhelming obstacles presented, and alleged violations committed, by the elections committee.
He was sworn into office for a third term on 2 April 2024, after winning the 2023 presidential election.
