ASUNCION, Paraguay — Paraguay’s Senate voted on Friday to remove President Santiago Pena from office over the collapse of the digital bank Ueno, and Vice President Pedro Alliana was sworn in within hours to serve the rest of the term until August 2028, according to the Associated Press.
All 44 senators present voted to remove Pena, with one senator absent from the 45 member chamber. The verdict found him guilty of poor performance of his duties. A day earlier, the Chamber of Deputies had voted 78 to 0 to impeach him. Pena had offered his resignation on Thursday in a video address, but Congress refused to accept it, a choice that stripped him of the lifetime Senate seat and the legal immunity that former presidents normally receive.
Within an hour of the vote, prosecutors placed Pena, 47, under house arrest at his home in Asuncion on suspicion of breach of trust, and ordered him to appear before prosecutors on Saturday morning. Former central bank president Carlos Carvallo was also detained. Prosecutors said the final charges were still being decided and could include influence peddling, and the attorney general has opened three criminal cases linked to the crisis, according to Reuters and CNN reporting.
The crisis began on November 3, when regulators seized Ueno after its solvency fell below half the required level. The bank held large amounts of public money, including funds linked to the state pension and health system, and its failure froze the savings of nearly three million people in a country of under seven million. Impeachment charges accused Pena of conflicts of interest, weak oversight and mishandling public funds. He held a stake in the bank’s parent group until March of last year, a fact his critics placed at the center of the case. Pena denies wrongdoing, and the accusations remain allegations, not findings of criminal guilt.
Pena is only the second Paraguayan president removed by impeachment since the return to democracy in 1989, after Fernando Lugo in 2012. He took office in August 2023 as one of the youngest presidents in the country’s history, representing the long governing Colorado Party. Alliana, 52, also of the Colorado Party, becomes the country’s 53rd president.
Why it matters reaches beyond politics. Families and pensioners need to know whether their savings are safe, and the new government must decide quickly how depositors will be paid and how the bank will be wound down. The case is also a test of whether Paraguay’s institutions can hold a sitting president to account through a legal process, as they have now done in days rather than months.
What happens next starts on Saturday, when Pena appears before the Economic Crimes and Anti Corruption Unit. At least 27 people face criminal charges in the wider scandal, according to prosecutors. Alliana, meanwhile, must name his team and set out a plan for depositors while the investigations continue.
Sources: Associated Press and Reuters reporting from Asuncion, with additional reporting by CNN.
