A group of Egyptian activists created “the Morsi Meter”, aimed at tracking the then President Mohamed Morsi’s promises. The Morsi Meter listed numerous promises Morsi allegedly made during the presidency campaign. The Morsi Meter turned a historical document after ousting of Morsi by the Egyptian Military. According to this document, Morsi achieved 10 out of his 64 promises during the election campaign. Today, two years after military takeover in Egypt, popular media and even academic papers present the unrealized promises of Morsi as main causes of the transition from democracy to authoritarianism. Even “via media” scholars count the unrealized promise of Morsi as a reason among many other reasons in explaining the failure of Egyptian revolution ousting Hosni Mubarak in 2011. For these pundits, Morsi could not become “a president for all” as he promised and this paved the way to the military takeover.

The explanation of the transition from democracy to authoritarianism through an unrealized promise is very problematic. To put this problem simply, realizing promises is the end of politics since the impossibility of realizing promise is the condition of democratic politics. It is the failure of promise that opens the political area to competition and change. The realization of promises like being the president for all ends the political and opens the gates to authoritarian regime. In other words, political promises are fully realized only in totalitarian regimes because this regime works through the promises that appear realized. The leader is the leader for all.

During his election campaign and in his speech after winning the election, Morsi declared, “I will be a president for all Egyptians”. This was a future-to-come promise and the realization of this promise would end its very meaning.