First 100 Days

 Md. Fakrul Islam Chowdhury of DOT : 
History: The First 100 Days agenda of a new government as we know it now was introduced by USA President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) when he took office in 1933. In his first 100 days he passed 15 legislations that made up his famous New Deal. FDR took this measure to ease the panic among the citizens regarding the state of the economy of the country.Since then, FDR’s unprecedented measures and productivity made this practice of first 100 day programs for a new government extremely popular not only in USA but throughout the world. FDR’s initiative has set the benchmark for first 100-day agenda all over the world for the successive governments against which they would be measured.
Why 100 days? :
Some of the major reasons for the popularity of the first 100 days agenda have been identified by the political analysts are given below.
1. The ‘100-Day Honeymoon’ which means a newly elected government enjoys huge popularity during this period. This enables it to take decisions and programs that would be otherwise very difficult to take once the honeymoon period is over.
2. Setting the Priorities Straight right from the start.
3. Reversing, repealing or abandoning those legislations and programs of the previous government that are in conflict with new governments policy and agenda.
4. Changing of the Guard in power
5. Giving a clear message to both the higher and filed administration and also to the citizens.
6. Giving the media and citizens something to measure and evaluate the new government’s activity/ policy/ agenda against in a relatively short period of time.
7. Setting up specific priorities and goals for respective ministries with deadlines provide the government with opportunities not only to get the action plan rolling but also have a tight grip on how things are progressing.
8. Gain valuable insights and experiences in obstacles and ground realities of the various agenda that were put forward in the Election Manifesto of the ruling party and take and adapt necessary measures to implement those promises.
So what should be the priorities for the new government for the first 100 days?
We hope to begin the conversation regarding that in our next installment.
The writer is Consulting Editor, Amader Notun Shomoy