Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will leave Egypt’s presidency in 2030. He said so on Saturday, October 17, at a graduation ceremony held at the Military Academy in the New Administrative Capital, east of Cairo.
The 71-year-old president wanted to put the debate to rest. He described his departure as a closed matter that he would not revisit and promised the constitution would not be changed. According to the Italian news agency Nova, he did add one caveat, saying his term would end in 2030 if he is still alive.
For some time, a number of his supporters had been calling for a new constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to stay on past that date. The idea was hardly new. In 2019, a referendum extended the presidential term from four to six years and opened the way for Sisi to run for a third one. The former army chief has led the country since the military removed Mohamed Morsi in 2013, and he was elected president the following year.
Sisi used the occasion to announce a programme meant to prepare the next generation. The Military Academy would offer a 30-month course to potential presidential candidates aged 40 to 50. More than 7,500 hours of training are planned, and the programme would also cover future ministers, members of parliament and local officials. Sisi wants a committee made up of the Speaker of Parliament, political and intellectual figures and the relevant ministers to set the selection criteria and draft the legislation.
This part of the plan leaves several questions open. The National newspaper points out that nothing was said about whether civilians would be allowed to apply, which leaves room for another military man to take the country’s top job in 2030. Lebanon’s L’Orient Today also reports that the president mentioned a constitutional revision, without saying what it would involve.
Opponents remain doubtful, not least because Sisi’s past commitments on term limits have not always held. Researcher H. A. Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute in London nonetheless believes the pledge should be taken seriously. In his view, the president made it of his own accord, with no one forcing his hand.
At the same ceremony, Sisi also promised that Egypt would defend Saudi Arabia’s security and sovereignty if Riyadh asked, against a backdrop of threats attributed to the Houthis.
By the end of his term, he will have spent sixteen consecutive years at the head of Egypt.