Paraguay's Senate removes President Peña over bank collapse; Alliana sworn in as Peña faces house arrest
Editorial illustration — Press Pass USAParaguay's Senate voted on Friday, November 6, 2026, to remove President Santiago Peña from office over the collapse of digital lender Ueno Bank, completing a political downfall that began with his resignation offer a day earlier. Vice President Pedro Alliana was sworn in as president soon after the vote, and authorities placed Peña under house arrest within the hour.
Forty-four of the Senate's 45 members voted to remove Peña, with one lawmaker absent. Senate President Basilio Núñez declared the former president "guilty of poor performance in his duties." The removal makes Peña the second Paraguayan president forced out by impeachment since 1989.
Peña had announced his resignation on Thursday, after Ueno Bank was shut down overnight in a solvency crisis that left millions of customers unable to access their money. But lawmakers refused to accept it, pressing ahead with impeachment to strip him of his parliamentary immunity. The lower house had already voted 78-0 on Thursday to impeach him.
Paraguay's Attorney General has opened three criminal cases against Peña and other former officials related to the bank crisis. Prosecutors said the exact charges were still being determined but could include breach of trust, influence peddling and misappropriation of funds. Peña was ordered to appear at the prosecutor's office on Saturday morning, and will remain under house arrest until a judge decides where he should stay while the criminal process takes place, according to prosecutor Christian Benítez.
The crisis erupted when Paraguay's central bank intervened in Ueno on Tuesday, November 3, after finding that the lender's solvency ratio — its capital cushion against its risks — had fallen below half the required minimum. Ueno, a fast-growing digital bank, had about 2.9 million customers in a country of 6.1 million people, and its accounts, cards and transfers went dark, triggering days of long lines at banks and street protests in Asunción. The fallout had already forced the resignation of the central bank chief on Tuesday.
Peña faced intense scrutiny because of his past business ties to the group that owned Ueno. He had been a business partner in the group that owned the lender until March 2025, and lawmakers accused him of conflicts of interest, manipulating regulatory oversight and diverting pension funds. Peña has denied wrongdoing, describing the matter as a regulatory issue.
Alliana, 52, will serve out the remainder of Peña's term through August 2028. A longtime leader of the governing conservative Colorado Party — he served seven years as its president — Alliana had been vice president since 2023. He had remained loyal to Peña until Monday, when he suspended his bid for the party's December primary elections while the government dealt with the financial turmoil. Opposition lawmakers also filed a motion to impeach Alliana over the crisis, but it failed to gain congressional approval.
Peña, 47, took office in August 2023 and was one of the staunchest allies of U.S. President Donald Trump in the region, even nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Alliana has pledged not to abandon the nearly three million savers affected by the bank's collapse, and has touted Paraguay's close relationship with the United States.
Sources: CNN, "Paraguay president impeached and under house arrest following bank collapse scandal" (Nov. 6, 2026, full text verified); Reuters, "Who is Paraguay's new president Pedro Alliana?" (Nov. 7, 2026, full text verified); The Times, "Paraguay president impeached after digital bank collapses" (Nov. 7, 2026). Event date verified: Senate removal vote, swearing-in and house arrest on Friday, November 6, 2026. Follow-up to Press Pass USA's Nov. 5 note on Peña's resignation and the lower house's 78-0 impeachment vote; the Senate removal, house arrest and succession are the new developments reported here.
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