Santiago Peña (center) with Marco Rubio (right) at a January 2025 meeting, an archive photo that does not show the resignation. Photo: Freddie Everett / U.S. Department of State / Wikimedia Commons / public domain.
Paraguay’s lower house approved impeachment proceedings against President Santiago Peña in Asunción on Thursday, November 5, after he announced that he was presenting his resignation amid the Ueno Bank crisis, according to The Associated Press and El País.
The Chamber of Deputies rejected Peña’s resignation and advanced impeachment, El País reported, saying lawmakers sought to prevent him from gaining immunity as a lifetime senator. The final decision now rests with the Senate, according to the newspaper.
The lower-house action is not a Senate conviction or completed removal from office. Peña has presented a resignation and announced his intent to leave, but the reports do not establish a settled transfer of power or that a successor has been installed.
A banking collapse becomes a presidential crisis
Peña said in a video that he had decided to present his resignation to preserve stability, social peace and democratic institutions, El País reported. The announcement came while the lower house was debating impeachment.
Peña took office in August 2023 for a term due to run until 2028, ABC Color reported. The newspaper linked his resignation announcement to the Ueno Bank crisis and reported that he had held a stake in Ueno Holding until 2025.
El País reported that his Colorado Party had turned against him as customers unable to access their savings protested. The impeachment process adds a separate institutional step to the resignation announcement, leaving the Senate to determine the next outcome.
What Ueno Bank’s collapse means for customers
Ueno is a Paraguayan bank whose operations were frozen over solvency problems, according to Bloomberg reporting published by El Financiero. The report said it had accumulated more than 2.9 million customers and about $2.8 billion in deposits.
Bloomberg described the affected customer base as roughly 60% of Paraguay’s adult population, not 60% of all residents. Customers’ inability to access accounts is not the same as confirmation that all deposits have been permanently lost.
For households and businesses, the immediate financial problem is access to money held at the bank. The resignation announcement and impeachment proceedings add a political crisis, but do not by themselves settle how customers will recover funds or how quickly access will be restored.
JBizNews Desk | Global
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