[Salon] Does Sisi go or does he stay past 2030? - ArabDigest.org Guest Post

Does Sisi go or does he stay past 2030? Summary: President Sisi’s musings on what happens when his current term ends in 2030 reveal unease within the ranks of regime loyalists and concern that the economic crisis engendered by his government could produce a spontaneous explosion of popular anger. We thank Hossam el-Hamalawy for today’s newsletter, an edited version of his Egypt Security Sector Report. Hossam is a journalist and scholar-activist currently based in Germany. He was involved in the Egyptian labour movement and was one of the organisers of the 2011 revolution. The Egypt Security Sector Report is available on 3Arabawy. Hossam is the author of Counterrevolution in Egypt: Sisi’s New Republic published by Verso. Follow his writings on Substack and X. On 14 October, President Sisi insisted nobody would touch the constitution, apparently ruling out another extension of his presidency beyond 2030. Was he reassuring the public, or addressing growing unease within the ruling establishment? The confusion was visible almost immediately. Several news websites deleted reports that quoted Sisi’s remarks regarding the constitution. This was roughly around 5 pm. They republished them only after the presidential spokesperson released his speech at 7 pm, roughly two hours before its television broadcast. Further confusion emerged when the presidential spokesperson, within minutes of publishing a statement on 15 October, quietly deleted a reference to Sisi remaining in office until 2030, replacing it with the open-ended assurance that he would continue working until his last day in power. The original wording remains visible in the post’s edit history on Facebook. Meanwhile, the MOI’s Homeland Security-backed Nation’s Future Party and the Military Intelligence-backed Homeland Defenders Party remained silent. The parties issued no statements on the constitutional remarks. Such hesitation hardly suggests a ruling establishment confidently following a settled succession strategy. Mada Masr quoted an anonymous parliamentary source claiming Sisi had privately declared: “I won’t wait for the defense minister to tell me to go to Sharm el-Sheikh,” invoking Hosni Mubarak’s downfall in 2011. Meanwhile, regime loyalist Mortada Mansour interpreted Sisi’s constitutional remarks as a definitive commitment to leave office, while other supporters demanded he remain. An apparently bogus campaign promoting Sisi’s son Mahmoud, which pro-regime presenter Ahmed Moussa blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood without substantiating the allegation, further muddied the waters. The confusion continued on 17 October, when Sisi delivered an extraordinary speech at the Military Academy graduation ceremony. He revealed that pro-regime broadcasters Nashat al-Deehi and Mostafa Bakry had questioned him about what would happen after his current term. This time, he was explicit: “In 2030, my term as president will end, if I live that long. This is completely settled and will not be discussed.” He also disclosed that Bakry had urged him against discussing the succession question publicly. The optics of fear: Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi among the populace in 2012, contrasted with Sisi’s isolated motorcade on a deserted boulevard. As Sisi contemplates a military-vetted succession plan for 2030, his daily security measures reveal the paranoia of a regime fearing a sudden explosion of public discontent. Sisi then outlined a proposed mechanism for preparing future leaders, including potential presidential candidates, under the supervision of the Egyptian Military Academy. With approximately 43 months remaining before 2030, he suggested selecting hundreds of candidates, principally holders of advanced university degrees, aged between 40 and 50, for a 30-month training program. The Speaker of Parliament, politicians and the Ministers of Higher Education and Justice would put together the selection mechanism. The armed forces would finance the training. Egyptians could subsequently elect their leaders from this pool of military-trained candidates, although Sisi said participation would not formally exclude others. The initiative would also produce future ministers, governors and senior officials. The Military Academy has already become an instrument for militarising the civilian bureaucracy, screening recruits and subjecting teachers, diplomats, civil servants and other professionals to military training and ideological indoctrination. Sisi is now proposing to extend this model to the political leadership itself. He explicitly denied preparing a family member or relative to succeed him, rejecting suggestions of hereditary succession. He insisted that Egypt could produce leaders considerably better than himself, provided they underwent “appropriate preparation.” More revealingly, Sisi invoked Article 200 of the constitution, assigning the armed forces responsibility for safeguarding the constitution, democracy and the state’s fundamental institutions. He claimed he had insisted on including this provision when the constitution was drafted in 2014, although the relevant language was actually introduced through amendments in 2019. Basically, this means a military institution is empowered to determine who is qualified to govern. “Not just anyone who can string two sentences together” should be allowed to lead the state, the president warned. Such an arrangement is reminiscent of Türkiye’s pre-Erdoğan political order—where the military appointed itself guardian of the constitutional system and repeatedly intervened whenever civilian politics were deemed to have crossed certain red lines. Sisi appears to be contemplating a similar guardianship arrangement, with the Military Academy preparing an approved political elite and the armed forces retaining a decisive role in safeguarding the system. Finally, Sisi made a striking overture to his Gulf sponsors. Recalling the financial and material assistance provided by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait following the 2013 coup, he ordered troops participating in the ceremony to perform a military salute honouring those countries. He then declared that Egypt was prepared to take whatever measures were necessary to defend Saudi Arabia. He called for an emergency parliamentary session to authorise military action if such assistance were requested, stressing that any intervention would be defensive. No deployment was announced. Nevertheless, the demonstration of loyalty to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies is worth noting amid the ongoing uncertainty over Sisi’s future. The timing was also telling. Just a day before Sisi’s extravagant declarations of Gulf solidarity, Asharq Bloomberg reported that Cairo was negotiating with Riyadh to renew US$5.3 billion in Saudi deposits at the Central Bank, falling due in October. In my book, Counterrevolution in Egypt, I argued that Sisi had unified the repressive apparatus for the first time since 1952. Yet this unprecedented unity was never guaranteed to last. The 2025 parliamentary elections already exposed tensions among security agencies, while the deepening economic crisis places the entire ruling coalition under increasing strain. I find it hard to believe Sisi willingly intends to relinquish power. What seems less certain is how he can engineer another extension without destabilising the very coalition sustaining his rule. It is still unclear which forces, if any, within the state apparatus oppose his continuation. His frantic appeals for unity, though, and the conflicting signals from regime loyalists, suggest a rift or at least confusion about what lies ahead. The present level of socio-political dissent remains insufficient to trigger a serious rupture at the top, despite the slow, incremental rise in industrial actions. Yet the security agencies monitoring public sentiment must surely recognise how deeply hated Sisi has become for a long list of reasons, most importantly the economic deterioration that his government has presided over. A spontaneous explosion of popular anger is not inconceivable. Finally, what do Saudi Arabia and the UAE—the regime’s most important sponsors—think? Are they OK with Sisi remaining in office beyond 2030? The answer is still unclear, but Sisi can no longer take for granted the support Saudi Arabia and the UAE gave him during the 2013 coup and its aftermath.