The head of Egypt’s armed forces, Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi stepped down from his position on Wednesday in order to run for president.

It comes nine months after he helped to topple the previous president, Mohammed Morsi, who had made him commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the first place.

Abdul Fattah al- Sisi’s candidacy is likely to be welcomed by the millions of Egyptians who are weary of more than three years of turmoil since the Arab Spring overthrow of veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Does his candidacy come as a surprise?

That’s the question 938LIVE’s Shima Roy posed to James M. Dorsey , a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University.