AbdelFattah el-Sisi's official portrait as Minister of Defense, 2014. On 12 August 2012, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made a decision to replace the Mubarak-era Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of the Egyptian Armed Forces, with then little-known Sisi. Egyptian President AbdelFattahal-Sisi attends a press conference at the presidential palace in the capital Cairo on December 11, 2017. AbdulFattahal-Sisi has been Egypt's president since 2014, a year after he led the military's overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi amid mass protests against his rule. Since rising to power, Egypt’s President AbdelFattahal-Sisi has secured his position as an authoritarian dictator.Egypt’s current government is a party-based authoritarian regime featuring a cult of personality with Sisi, the president, at its center. Al-Sisi’s efforts to bring Egypt closer to Israel lack popular support, as most trade unions and political parties oppose normalizing relations with Israel. Despite AbdelFattah El-Sisi’s overwhelming popularity when he declared his presidential candidacy, he presented himself as a military man through and through rather than as a ruler with a military background, as had been the case in Egypt since 1952. - Yehia Hamed is Egypt’s former minister of investment. The views expressed in this article belong to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. Photo: An Egyptian man walks past a poster of Egyptian President AbdelFattahal-Sisi (Reuters). The Field Marshal who toppled Egypt’s first democratically elected president. Save.AbdelFattah el-Sisi is the sixth Egyptian president, re-elected in March 2018 with 97 percent of the votes. This is the story of a field marshal turned president.