Credit, EPA
The president of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, remains in office despite having announced his resignation this Thursday (5/11). In Paraguay, the president's resignation must be accepted by Congress.
However, the Paraguayan legislature did not vote for Peña's resignation and decided to open impeachment proceedings.
If Congress had accepted his resignation, Peña would have automatically become a senator for life and would have been entitled to privileged jurisdiction, preventing investigations into him.
The Chamber of Deputies approved the accusation against Peña by 78 votes. Then, a joint session of Congress was called to vote on the resignation, but ended up suspended due to lack of quorum, after parliamentarians from the ruling Colorado Party left the plenary.
The Senate began the procedure on Thursday. The next stage is scheduled for this Friday (6/11), at 10 am, local time, the same as Brasília.
Peña or his lawyers must present their defense. Afterwards, senators must analyze the evidence and hear final arguments from both sides before voting.
The rite is provided for in the Paraguayan Constitution. To definitively remove the president, the favorable votes of two thirds of the 45 members of the Senate are necessary, that is, at least 30.
On a day marked by clashes outside Congress and rumors about a possible departure from the country, Peña announced, in a message published on X, that he intends to attend the trial and exercise his right to defense.
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"I will fully collaborate with the competent institutions to clarify what happened, determine responsibilities and ensure that those who broke the law are brought to justice," he said.
Presidency spokesman Guillermo Grance stated that Peña is at his residence.
Credit, Reuters
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What happens if Peña is convicted — and what he is accused of
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If Peña is convicted, vice-president Pedro Alliana must take command of the country until the end of the current term — the Chamber of Deputies rejected the impeachment request against Alliana, by 48 votes to 30.
The political crisis was triggered by the Central Bank's intervention in Ueno Bank earlier this week. According to the regulatory body, the institution had a solvency ratio lower than half the minimum required by law.
The bank, which has around 3 million customers, managed approximately US$850 million in public resources.
Peña was a shareholder in the Vázquez Group, controller of Ueno, until March 2025. The accusation approved by the deputies points out possible conflicts of interest and questions, among other points, the concentration of resources from the Social Security Institute (IPS), responsible for the Paraguayan pension system, in the financial institution.
In parallel, the Public Ministry opened three criminal investigations to investigate possible irregularities in the supervision and resolution of the bank, in addition to the application of public resources in the institution.
Peña is singled out, above all, for an alleged conflict of interests due to his ties to the conglomerate that manages Ueno Bank. These are the main points of the accusation:
The next steps of impeachment
After hearing the accusations, the senators summoned the president to present his defense this Friday morning.
The president of Congress, Basilio Núñez, explained that the impeachment process against President Santiago Peña has five stages.
Each of them requires the convening of an extraordinary session of the Senate. See below:
Núñez stated that the entire process "can be completed" soon.
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Abandoned by his own party
As Paraguayan historian and political analyst Fabián Chamorro explained to the BBC, "what Peña would achieve by resigning would be to maintain his prerogatives, as he would automatically become a senator for life."
But, Chamorro highlighted, the president "lost all possibilities when his own party announced that it would support the impeachment request."
Former president Horacio Cartes, leader of the Colorado Party and Peña's political mentor, announced support for the initiative, leaving the current president increasingly isolated.
Opposition representatives criticized the government supporters who defended the acceptance of Peña's resignation.
"You will have to explain to your neighbors what you did: you were accomplices to a criminal and turned him into a senator for life. Take responsibility for this, because I will never accept this resignation," said senator Yolanda Paredes, from the Cruzada Nacional party.
Representative Raúl Benítez, from the Central party, told parliamentarians in favor of accepting the resignation: "You are making a mistake. They say that these measures are to prevent violence, but, in reality, the violence came from institutions that did not protect the population, that did not take care of savers' money. What is appropriate is for the impeachment process to continue. We need to know where the money is", he declared.
In turn, government deputy Rodrigo Gamarra, from the Colorado Party, stated that accepting the resignation did not mean agreeing with Peña's actions or covering up his role in the case.
"It's a matter of deciding whether we want to bring this to a definitive end, make the institutions work and allow people to get their money back," he highlighted.
Paraguay's attorney general, Emiliano Rolón Fernández, ordered the opening of a criminal investigation into Peña's role in the Ueno Bank crisis.
*With information from Darío Brooks and Guillermo D. Olmo, from BBC News Mundo
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