MAY 25 —  The Nepal parliament was dissolved for the second time in five months. A general election will take place in November while Covid-19 rages on in the Himalayan nation.

Nepalese politics, for a greater part of the decade, is best described as precarious. The elections are only one of caretaker prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s worries as the nation continues to log more than 7,000 Covid-19 cases daily.

The political instability in Kathmandu is not helping the exponential surge in cases nor able to address the failing medical system.

Nepal police personnel detain activists during a protest outside the president building, after the president dissolved the parliament and fixed general elections in November, amid a worsening Covid-19 outbreak, in Kathmandu May 23, 2021. — Reuters pic

Nepal’s politics have also had significant influence on Kathmandu’s relationship with Putrajaya. One of the most important aspects of the Malaysia-Nepal relationship has always been labour migration. Malaysia has been the top destination for Nepali workers since 2008.

In May 2018, however, following an exposé on corruption and malpractice related to the entry of Nepali workers into Malaysia, labour minister Gokarna Bista placed a temporary ban on Nepali citizens going to Malaysia for work.

Malaysian and Nepalese news media outlets exposed a network of companies and government agencies in both countries involved in the alleged exploitation of 600,000 Malaysia-bound Nepali workers between September 2013 and April 2018.

While Bista took the unprecedented step of stopping labour movement from Nepal to Malaysia, he was also instrumental in signing a landmark memorandum of understanding (MoU) with former human resources minister M. KulaSegaran.

The Malaysia-Nepal agreement was said to have set a standard for migration-related reforms in Nepal. In September 2019, Nepalese workers could resume travelling to Malaysia, protected under the provisions of the new agreement.

Employers are responsible for visa fees and air tickets and to deposit salaries by the 7^th of every month. All foreign workers are also covered under Socso.

In November 2019, Oli sacked Bista. His successor, Rameswar Rai Yadav, stayed in office for a little more than a year until he resigned with six other ministers in disagreement over Oli’s move to dissolve parliament.

During Yadav’s tenure, unscrupulous labour-related agencies labour-related agencies that went dormant in Bista’s ministerial term threatened to restore the former order.

Gauri Shankar Chaudhary then succeeded Yadav despite losing his parliamentary seat and ministership after defecting from his party. His tenure was equally short-lived. Hence, in the last three years, three different ministers have led the labour ministry.

This is an incredibly dynamic situation can have very real repercussions for labour movements between Nepal and Malaysia. Article 13 of the MoU states that either party reserves the right to suspend the agreement for reasons of national security or national interests.

Hence it is important to keep an eye on the political developments in Nepal, especially this year, as they could impact on existing bilateral agreements.

Of course, the pandemic has also made it impossible for the agreement to be fully utilised now that Putrajaya has imposed travel restrictions on workers coming from Nepal. Nepal’s Department of Foreign Employment said it has not issued any new permit for Malaysia-bound workers in the last eight months of the fiscal year 2020/2021 due to a lack of demand.

Despite the pandemic, Malaysia has made significant provisions for undocumented immigrants in the country, including those from Nepal, under the labour recalibration programme and the "back for good” (B4G) amnesty programme.

The recalibration programme aims to regularise illegal immigrants as foreign workers while B4G allows undocumented workers to return home without facing the penalty of up to RM10,000 for overstaying, and a jail term of up to five years. A total of 5,900 Nepalis opted for the B4G scheme.

It is not uncommon for national politics to have an impact on foreign policy or international relations. The key to Putrajaya and Kathmandu’s lasting partnership is to ensure that labour-related agreements remain resilient and relatively impervious to domestic political "crossfire”.

A check-and-balance system where stakeholders engage in dialogue to monitor the implementation of the agreements would be a good way to do this. This will not only be mutually beneficial to both countries but contribute to the wellbeing of the workers.

* Yanitha Meena Louisis a researcher, Foreign Policy and Security Studies programme at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.