Paraguay’s president quits after millions of people’s savings frozen in bank crisis

Santiago Peña fala em Assunção, Paraguai, em 3 de março de 2025. Fotografia: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy. Ver imagem em tela cheia. Santiago Peña fala em Assunção, Paraguai, em 3 de março de 2025.

Prefer the Guardian on Google O presidente de direita do Paraguai, Santiago Peña, renunciou na quinta-feira após uma crise política e financeira ter derrubado o sistema bancário do país sul-americano nos últimos dias.

At the centre of the crisis is Ueno Bank, which in just a few years under Peña went from an obscure digital bank to one of the country’s largest lenders, claiming to have about 60% of Paraguay’s adult population as customers.

Last Monday, the central bank ordered Ueno into resolution over insolvency, freezing the deposits of 3 million customers, leaving hundreds of thousands of families without access to money for food and basic daily expenses.

Bank executives were arrested, and people took to the streets in massive protests.

Read moreIn power since August 2023 and with a term running until 2028, the 47-year-old economist was already facing impeachment proceedings that had broad support.

Ueno Bank began as a finance company in the 1970s and, in 2021, was bought by Grupo Vázquez, one of Paraguay’s largest business and industrial conglomerates. At the end of 2023, it received authorisation from the central bank, already under Peña’s administration, to operate as a digital bank.

The bank rapidly expanded its operations, attracting customers with generous cash-back offers on groceries and sponsoring Paraguay’s national football team. On Wednesday, the players released a letter “demanding” a “forceful response” from the government and the justice system.

Peña disse que, como economista, ele havia feito apenas um “investimento”, mas que já havia se despossuído de todas as suas ações. Quando a imprensa local apontou para possível favorecimento indevido ao direcionar fundos estatais e de pensão ao banco, ele chamou isso de “campanha de mídia falsa” destinada a enfraquecer seu governo.

On Wednesday, opposition lawmakers and even members of Peña’s Colorado party filed an impeachment motion holding the president responsible for the collapse. He had been a shareholder in the group that ran the bank until early last year and, in recent months, had reportedly been ignoring warnings from the central bank and the media about its operations.

A pressão política se intensificou na manhã de quinta-feira quando o ex‑presidente Horacio Cartes, seu antigo aliado, postou uma mensagem endossando o impeachment.

Other lawmakers followed suit and began debating impeachment when Peña released a video announcing his resignation.

Since the scandal broke, Peña has insisted in interviews and statements that he committed no wrongdoing.

Opposition senator Rafael Filizzola called the case “the biggest fraud carried out from political power in the democratic era … This is a bank created from political power, to use public money for private businesses linked to political power, with the president of the republic at the head of it,” he told 1020 AM radio.

Peña, a former finance minister who promised to rebuild a “great Paraguay”, was a key ally of the US president, Donald Trump, in the region – one of the few Latin American presidents to attend Trump’s second inauguration.

Os oficiais dos EUA, incluindo o secretário de Estado, Marco Rubio, elogiaram‑o repetidamente como “strategic partner”, e Peña recentemente voou para Washington para discutir minerais críticos e cooperação econômica.

Neither Rubio nor Trump has yet commented on Peña’s resignation.

It is still unclear who will replace him or when, because his resignation must, in theory, be accepted by Congress – in which case the vice-president, Pedro Alliana, would take over.

Alliana is also suspected of involvement in the Ueno Bank scandal, which he has denied.

Cerca de uma hora após o anúncio de Peña, a Câmara aprova unânime a moção de impeachment, que agora segue ao Senado. Se aprovado, mesmo após sua renúncia, ele perderia o mandato no Senado e, com ele, a imunidade parlamentar, ficando à mercê de qualquer processo criminal nos tribunais ordinários.