Paraguay President Santiago Peña Resigns: Lower House Votes 78-0 to Impeach as Bank Collapse Freezes Some 3 Million Accounts
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña announced his resignation on Thursday, Nov. 5, in a recorded video address in Asunción. Minutes after his announcement, Paraguay's lower house voted 78-0 to impeach him. The crisis was triggered by the collapse of ueno, a digital bank to which Peña had past business ties: the accounts of the bank's roughly 3 million customers were frozen, sparking three days of street protests in a country of about 6.5 million people.
"I do so with the stability of our country, social peace, and the need to preserve our democratic institutions in mind," Peña said in the address, adding that his greatest wish was for affected funds to be returned, for the deposit guarantee fund to fulfill its purpose and for public funds to be protected. The impeachment charges now go to the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to convict and formally remove a president. Earlier on Thursday, Peña lost the backing of senior figures in his own conservative Colorado Party — party leader and former president Horacio Cartes and Congress President Basilio Núñez withdrew their support — and lawmakers from the ruling party joined the opposition in the unanimous impeachment vote.
Ueno, launched in 2021, grew rapidly from a niche fintech company into a mid-sized bank administering about $850 million in public funds, including money from state institutions and pension-related bodies. Paraguay's central bank intervened after determining that ueno had breached minimum solvency requirements, leaving its roughly 3 million customers unable to access their accounts. The central bank is working to transfer ueno accounts to other financial institutions, a process that has strained the banking system and contributed to outages at several banking apps. Customers, including pensioners who receive state benefits through ueno, gathered outside branches this week seeking access to their savings. Earlier this week, Peña approved legislation to help accelerate payments to depositors affected by the collapse.
Lawmakers accused Peña of conflicts of interest, misuse of pension funds and institutional cover-ups. An economist elected in 2023, Peña was a shareholder in Grupo Vázquez, which controls ueno; he has said he sold his stake in March 2025, while ueno says he never had a direct relationship with the bank as a shareholder or investor. Peña has repeatedly rejected any suggestion of improper ties, describing the controversy as the political escalation of what began as a regulatory issue and arguing it should be addressed through the courts. Prosecutors said on Thursday that Peña was among those being investigated over the bank's failure, though he has not been taken in for questioning; they issued arrest warrants for eight ueno executives this week.
The regulatory fallout also reached the central bank. Its chief, Carlos Carvallo, had previously been head of ueno and resigned on Tuesday after the central bank put ueno into resolution. The central bank denied any conflict of interest, saying Carvallo recused himself from all decisions related to ueno, but lawmakers, banking industry representatives and opposition figures have questioned whether oversight was sufficient.
Peña's resignation must be formally accepted by Congress. Lawmakers were expected to accept it on Thursday afternoon local time, clearing the way for Vice President Pedro Alliana to be sworn in as president and serve out the remainder of Peña's term through August 2028, with Congress also set to choose a new vice president. Paraguay has won investment-grade credit ratings and built a reputation as one of South America's more stable and reform-friendly economies; whether the crisis will damage that reputation in the longer term remains unclear.
(Source: Reuters, The Associated Press)
Source: Reuters, The Associated Press
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图片来源：Wikimedia Commons（Santiago Peña 2023年8月就职时讲话资料图，中华民国总统府官方照片，CC BY 4.0） / Image: Office of the President, Republic of China (Taiwan) via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0); file photo from Peña's August 2023 inauguration
- 2026-11-04Paraguay's Ueno Bank Dissolved by Central Bank, Leaving Some 3 Million Customers Locked Out: 35 Lawmakers File Impeachment Articles Against President Pena
- 2026-11-05Paraguay President Santiago Peña Resigns: Lower House Votes 78-0 to Impeach as Bank Collapse Freezes Some 3 Million AccountsThis story
