Asunción (Paraguay) (AFP) – In just over three years, Santiago Peña went from being the young right-wing economist who became president of Paraguay, as a reference for a new political generation, to presenting his resignation due to a banking crisis that froze the deposits of almost half of the population.

First modification: 06/11/2026 - 02:49

Congress temporarily suspended his resignation, but approved a request for impeachment that Peña will have to face from Friday.

The president presented his resignation from office just two days after the scandal broke out over Ueno Bank, an entity with which Peña had business ties and which was intervened by the Central Bank of Paraguay (BCP) due to insufficient capital.

Through a video broadcast on X, the 47-year-old president said this Thursday that he made the decision to "preserve" democratic institutions and apologized to Paraguayans.

His own political movement, the traditional Colorado Party, had withdrawn its support.

His former mentor, former president Horacio Cartes (2013-2018), had announced that his party would support the request for impeachment against him.

The vice president, Pedro Alliana, was in line to complete the mandate until 2028.

Peña had governed since August 2023, when at the age of 44 he became the youngest president of the South American country's democratic era.

Ascent

Born in Asunción on November 16, 1978 into a wealthy family, he came to power with a technocratic profile with a long academic career.

He studied economics at the Catholic University of Paraguay and completed a master's degree at Columbia (New York). In his international experience, he worked in the Africa department of the International Monetary Fund in Washington.

Between 2000 and 2009 he was an official at the Central Bank. In 2012 he joined its board of directors and in 2015 he was appointed Minister of Finance by Cartes.

The influential former president and also a wealthy tobacco businessman, who has been sanctioned by the United States as "significantly corrupt", made him join the Colorado Party (conservative).

This is the party that has dominated the political life of Paraguay since the 19th century.

In 2017, Peña ran in primaries for Cartes' seat to obtain the presidential candidacy, but lost to Mario Abdo Benítez (who ended up winning the first magistracy from 2018-2023).

Five years later he ran again and in 2023 he won the general elections with about 43% of the votes.

In power he aligned himself with the right-wing governments in the region, and maintained close ties with the US administration of Donald Trump.

In March 2026, he participated in the Shield of the Americas summit in Miami, where Paraguay joined the Shield of the Americas.

In terms of international politics, their position of diplomatic loyalty to Taiwan in the face of China's claims for the territory, and their support for Israel over the conflict in Gaza with the inauguration of an embassy in Jerusalem, also stand out.

He opposes equal marriage and legal abortion.

Ueno Bank

On Tuesday, November 3, the BCP ordered the intervention of the digital bank Ueno Bank, after its solvency ratio fell below the required minimum.

Almost three million clients, half of the 6.4 million Paraguayans, have an account in the digital entity. Their savings were frozen.

Peña had shares in a group that controlled the bank, from which he separated in 2025.

In its request for impeachment, the opposition accused the president of conflict of interest and of favoring the entity with regulatory decisions and provisional deposits.

Once the commotion over the case began, Peña demanded the resignation of the head of the Central Bank, and promulgated a law to advance payments to depositors.

However, the measures were not enough to silence the conflict.

"We will not be on the side of the theft of public, private and retiree funds," Cartes published on his social networks on Thursday morning.

For his part, pro-government senator Óscar "Cachito" Salomón told the press that Peña "has betrayed the country for money."

A bicameral session of Congress did not obtain a quorum to vote on the acceptance or rejection of his resignation, so he will have to face impeachment starting Friday.

The opposition maintains that accepting it would grant him the privileges of a senator for life and would protect him from criminal investigation.

© 2026 AFP

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