Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi عبد الفتاح السيسي
Born	19 November 1954 (age 70) Cairo, Egypt
Political orientation	Neoliberalism Imperialism

Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi (born 19 November 1954) is an Egyptian politician and military officer who has served as the sixth president of Egypt since 2014. Although officially an elected official, Sisi is in effect a military dictator who has controlled Egypt since the 2013 coup d'état, kept in power by repression and coercion along with the backing of NATO and imperialism.

Early life

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was born on November 19, 1954 in Cairo's old city, where he was raised on the edge of the Jewish quarter in an area of high diversity. Though never in active combat, in his youth Sis lived through three wars between the colony of Israel and Egypt, the last of which was in 1973 when Sisi was 19. Sisi graduated from the military academy in 1977 and married his maternal cousin Entissar Amer, with who he had three sons and a daughter, before becoming a commissioned military officer.

Military career

Whilst in the military Sisi continued his military training at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College in 1992 before receiving a master’s degree from the US Army War College in Pennsylvania in 2006. After serving as security chief at the military attache office in Saudi Arabia, Sisi returned to Egypt in 2008 as chief of staff of the northern military zone.

In February 2011, shortly after the Egyptian revolution in the midst of the Arab Spring, a military council assumed control of the country and appointed Sisi as the head of military intelligence. Sisi defended the “virginity tests” carried out on female protesters during the revolution, which he claimed were conducted to “protect girls from rape as well as the army from possible allegations”. In 2012, the newly elected President Mohamed Morsi appointed Sisi as minister of defence and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

In the summer of 2013, during massive anti-Morsi protests planned for June 30 Sisi took the opportunity to seize power, sending the President a 48-hour ultimatum to meet the "meet the demands of the people," and step down or call new elections. Morsi's electoral legitimacy and attempts to form a new government was ignored and the military deposed him on Sisi's command when the deadline expired on July 3. Sisi then announced the overthrow of the government, the temporary suspension of the constitution, and the appointment of a judge as temporary president until new elections were held. Sisi promised to guarantee freedom of expression, then proceeded to outlaw all activities and organisations related to Morsi’s party, the Muslim Brotherhood, and embarked on a campaign of arresting and silencing its supporters.

Presidency

Initially, Sisi denied any intentions to hold the office but on March 26, 2014, he announced he would be "resigning" from the military to run for president and on June 3, 2014, he was declared the winner of the presidential election with 96.9% of the vote. He would again be re-elected in 2018 with 97% of the vote.