Politics appears to have trumped business in emerging markets on Wednesday, when the Indian company Bharti Airtel and its South African rival, the MTN Group, called off a $24 billion deal to create a low-cost telecommunications giant. The two companies have been in intensive talks for about four months, but the deal was ultimately derailed by the South African and Indian governments, according to people on both sides of the transaction. This is the second time that MTN, South Africa's flagship phone company, and Bharti, India's largest mobile company, have come close to a deal and then called it off. Governments in emerging markets and global development groups have trumpeted the benefits of more 'South-South' trade, or trade between developing countries, as a way to ease poverty and secure economic growth. But striking deals can be difficult because of immature capital markets and hands-on governments, which make corporations less independent than their counterparts in developed economies. The Bharti-MTN deal was also heralded as a way to counterbalance China's growing influence in both sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. China recently passed the United States as the largest export destination for South African goods, and became South Africa's largest trading partner, according to the South Africa's Department of Trade and Industry. In this case, protectionism may have gotten the upper hand. While management from both MTN and Bharti were ready to move on a deal, the two governments were not, said analysts, executives and deal makers involved in the talks. 'The deal was pretty much through from the companies' perspective, but the governments could not see eye to eye,' said Kamlesh Bhatia, a principal research analyst with the consulting firm Gartner. Heavy government intervention had not been anticipated because both companies are publicly traded and controlled by investors. But the South African government, under Jacob G. Zuma, who became president in May, has been jockeying to maintain and create national corporate icons, say bankers who do deals in the country. In this instance, the government pushed for MTN Group, a mobile and fixed-line phone company with more than 100 million subscribers, to maintain a listing in Johannesburg as well as on India's exchange in Mumbai, which is against Indian rules. The government also seemed anxious to maintain MTN's local character. Speaking about MTN early Wednesday, South Africa's communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda said 'It would be sad if we saw this entity move into the hands and management of foreign nationals.' India's financial regulators were also inflexible. They were not willing to immediately change rules about dual-listings, said people involved. Regulators and finance officials from South Africa visited India last week to meet with their counterparts here, but the two groups could not reach a compromise. 