Business and politics are interrelated with each other. Any changes in political dynamics can hit the business hardly. The recent blockade and Tarai strike has created colossal damage to the business sector in Nepal. So we must assess the political change and its impact in business effectively to ensure the future success.
The issues of political environment in Nepal can be explained as follows:
- Political Instability: Political instability is the frequent change of government. The change in government creates change in policy which adversely affects the development of business sectors. In Nepal there are altogether 22 government in 2 5 years. This leads to weak government control and ineffective implementation of law. Forced donation‚ kidnapping ‚threatening are common because of instable government.
- Lack of broader vision on political parties: The main stream political parties suffer from the lack of broader vision‚ policy and programs which are essential for good governance‚ political stability and economic development. This creates low confidence level to the private sectors.
- Poor understanding among the political parties: Lack of trust and egos between political parties causes poor understanding between them. They are unable to build consensus even in national issues. This adversely impacts the long-term growth of business sector in Nepal.
- Lack of democratic thoughts: Most of the main stream parties found very weak in developing democratic norms‚ values‚ belief within them. This limits the concept of sovereignty to people only in papers. Such behaviors negatively affect the business industry functions.
- Lack of good governance: Good governance is being accountable‚ transparent‚ responsive‚ inclusive in making and implementing decision. However‚ according to Amnesty international in 2014 Nepal rank 126th out of 174 countries in the world in governance. This data show how weak our government is in policy formulation and its implementation.
- Labour force as political force: Most of the labour unions are politically oriented‚ multiplicity and outside leadership. The psychological distance between the management ‚labour and government is very wide. The government has not been able to play regulatory ‚ adjudicatory and developmental roles as effectively as expected.
- Employers’ Association: The employers’ associations in Nepal are found to be influenced by politics. They are unable to create good relation between labors and government. They are focused only on short-run profit and pressurize the government to formulate the laws which benefits them a lot in their standing.