By Tannur Anders and Sfundo Parakozov

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 19 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand

weakened on Wednesday, after the national budget was postponed

until further notice due to disagreements within the coalition

government.

At 1402 GMT, the rand traded at 18.57 against the dollar

, down more than 0.9% from its previous close.

After his budget speech was postponed, South Africa's

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said that the government would

have further discussions and table a new budget in March.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said the budget had been

postponed because of its opposition to an African National

Congress (ANC) proposal to increase value-added tax (VAT) by 2

percentage points.

The ANC will need the support of other parties to pass the

budget, as it lost its parliamentary majority in an election

last year. The DA is its main partner in a coalition government

of national unity.

"There is something seriously wrong when a GNU postpones a

National Budget with no warning thereby affecting investor

sentiment and undermining citizen's confidence in the

administration," independent political economy analyst Daniel

Silke wrote on X.

Investors were keenly awaiting the budget speech for clues

on the coalition government's fiscal priorities, its plans to

tackle debt, and economic reforms.

The delay also triggered the sharpest selloff in the

country's government bonds since December with the 2052 maturity

down as much as 1 cent.

On the stock market, the Top-40 index was last down

about 0.5%.

South Africa's benchmark 2030 government bond was

weaker, with the yield up 6.5 basis points at 9.19%.

(Additional reporting by Marc Jones in London, Writing by

Bhargav Acharya

Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kirsten Donovan)