Santiago Peña resigned as president of Paraguay on Thursday, Nov. 5, as a political crisis over a failed digital bank closed in on his government. Earlier the same day, the country's Congress had taken the first steps toward an impeachment vote targeting both Peña and his vice president, according to G1.
The crisis traces back to Ueno, a digital bank that shut its doors and left thousands of customers unable to reach their own money. Peña was a shareholder in the group that controlled the institution, and opposition figures accuse Paraguay's central bank of covering up irregularities, G1 reports.
Why it matters
The departure of a sitting president over a financial scandal is a rare event in South America, and it lands in a country where one party has shaped national politics for decades. Peña's resignation hands power to a leadership that will inherit both a banking investigation and public anger over lost savings.
It also raises questions about oversight: the opposition's claim that the central bank shielded irregularities, as reported by G1, goes to the heart of how Paraguay supervises its financial system. How that accusation is resolved will shape whether depositors and investors treat the country's banking sector as trustworthy.
A career built on economics and the Colorado Party
Peña, 47, won the presidency in April 2023, defeating Efraín Alegre. He belongs to the Colorado Party, the right-wing movement that has dominated Paraguayan politics since the 1950s, and he succeeded Mario Abdo Benítez, a fellow Colorado member, in the presidency.
His path to the office ran through economics rather than electoral politics alone. He studied at Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de Asunción in Paraguay and then worked at the country's central bank. He later completed postgraduate study at Columbia University in the United States and joined the International Monetary Fund at age 30, working in the fund's department for Africa, according to G1.
Back in Paraguay, he returned to the central bank before serving as finance minister from 2015 to 2017 under then-president Horácio Cartes. During that period he joined the Colorado Party. When Cartes's government ended, Peña went to work at the former president's bank.
His first run for the presidency came in 2018, when he lost the Colorado primaries to Abdo Benítez, the man he would eventually replace. G1 notes that when he won in 2023, many observers expected the governing party's popularity to be suffering from a slowing economy and corruption allegations.
The outlet also reports a personal detail from his early life: Peña became a father at 17 while still in school. He is married to Leticia Ocampo, with whom he has another child.
What the bank collapse set off
The Ueno failure turned a financial problem into a constitutional one. Customers lost access to their deposits when the digital bank closed, and Peña's prior role as a shareholder in its controlling group made him a direct target for opponents. The accusation that the central bank concealed problems at the institution widened the dispute beyond the bank itself, per G1.
Congress responded by beginning the process of an impeachment vote against both Peña and Vice President Pedro Alliana. The governing Colorado Party then announced it supported the president's impeachment, CNN Brasil reported — a signal that Peña had lost the political base he would have needed to stay in office. Peña's resignation followed.
G1 published the full text of his resignation statement, and Folha de S.Paulo reported that he stepped down after the financial scandal.
Who may take over
Attention now turns to Pedro Alliana, the vice president who could assume the presidency, according to Estadão. Alliana was elected on the same ticket as Peña in 2023.
The next steps depend on how Congress and the courts handle the unresolved questions about Ueno and the central bank's conduct. Watch whether Alliana takes office and whether the impeachment process against him continues, and whether depositors at the failed bank recover access to their funds.
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