NAIROBI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Benin’s international bond prices fell on Monday, Tradeweb data showed, after an attempted coup in the West African nation on Sunday.
The 2052 maturity shed as much as 1.8 cents to bid at 88.04 cents on the euro, data from Tradeweb showed, while dollar-denominated bonds slipped around 1.5 cents on the dollar.
Longer-dated maturities, which saw the heftiest declines, later pared their losses with bonds maturing in 2038 and beyond down just over one cent each.
Benin’s President Patrice Talon said government and armed forces had thwarted a coup attempt by a group of soldiers on Sunday.
“This is likely to dent the country’s reputation for relative stability,” said BMI, part of the Fitch group, in a note to clients.
Parliamentary and presidential elections, scheduled for January and April next year respectively, are expected to go ahead, BMI said in the note, with economy and finance minister Romuald Wadagni seen as the frontrunner in the presidential race.
Sunday’s coup attempt is the latest threat to democratic rule in the region after militaries seized power in Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea in recent years, as well as in Guinea-Bissau last month.
However, the swift resolution of the attempted overthrow was seen as a positive by some analysts.
“The country has not seen a successful coup since 1972, marking a remarkable 53-year stability record in coup-prone West Africa.
This track record now stands reaffirmed,” said Jamie Fallon at Tellimer, pointing to swift regional support which signalled “strong international commitment to defending constitutional order”.
Nigeria had sent air force fighter jets in support of Talon’s government, while West Africa’s regional bloc ECOWAS said it had ordered the immediate deployment of some of its standby force to Benin, including troops from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Ghana.
(Reporting by Duncan Miriri, editing by Karin Strohecker and Hugh Lawson)
