South Africa seized the moment for its return to the international debt market after an absence of two years, finding a window between a failed bid to remove the country's leader and the prospect of a ratings downgrade. The Treasury sold a $1.25-billion 10-year bond with a coupon of 4.875%, 335 basis points over US treasuries, it said in Pretoria last week.The last dollar sale was a 2044 bond issued at 220 basis points above US bonds of similar maturity.The latest deal was arranged two days after ANC MPs quashed an attempt to impeach President Jacob Zuma and in the same week as Standard & Poor's, which might cut the country's credit to junk status, lowered its forecast for growth.That sounds like a difficult time at which to approach investors, but things could be worse, according to Abri du Plessis, of Gryphon Asset Management, in Cape Town."The sooner you do it the better," said Du Plessis, who helps manage $236-million in funds and is not considering adding South African debt to his portfolios."The economic fundamentals, especially, can worsen," he said.The cost of insuring South Africa's five-year debt against default, and the premium investors demand for buying South African dollar bonds over treasuries, both climbed this week as politics combined with renewed ratings concerns.After South Africa's highest court ruled that Zuma broke the law when he refused to pay back taxpayers' money used to upgrade his private Nkandla home, opposition parties led a failed charge to impeach the president.S&P cut its estimate of South Africa's growth rate by half last week and said it was worried that increasing political tension would divert the government's attention from the need to reverse slowing economic growth, the primary pressure on the rating.The agency, due to publish a review of South Africa in June, ranks the country BBB-, one level above junk status.The Treasury had planned an international bond sale before the end of March, but said it might delay the issue if conditions did not meet its requirements."What we look for is stable market conditions, with less volatility and noise, conditions characterised by stable indicative pricing," Tshepiso Moahloli, the Treasury's chief director of liability management, said.After falling 25% in 2015, the rand has gained 3% this year as emerging market currencies rallied to their best month on record in March.The MSCI Emerging Markets stock index added 13% last month, the most since May 2009.The bond sale was more than two times oversubscribed, with most of the investors being in Europe and the US, the Treasury said. ..