They may also be thinking about export markets (the French will for sure)
The F-35 is too expensive and probably restricted, the F-22 is out of production and REALLY restricted and any F-22 replacement will be unbelievably expensive and never exported.
Anything Russian or Chinese is relatively unreliable and not competitive (yet)
A lot of countries will be faced with replacing all those F-16's, F-18's F-15's, MiG 29's & Mirages and quite a few of them are not poor and will be serious regional players by 2030-2040