Back
Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
THE PRESIDENT WANTED TO LEAVE ON HIS OWN. THEY WOULDn'T LET HIM.
Two days after the bank collapse the president of Paraguay recorded a video about resigning. A few minutes later the deputies voted for impeachment: 78 votes to zero. They wouldn't let him leave quietly.
We wrote about the Ueno Bank collapse yesterday: three million clients locked out, 850 million dollars of state money, about 380 million of it from the pension fund, and President Santiago Peña, who until 2025 was a business partner of the bank's owners. In a day the story about the bank became a story about power.
Timeline. On 3 the central bank closed Ueno. On 4 35 deputies filed a motion to impeach Peña and Vice President Pedro Alliana. That same day Peña signed an emergency law: depositors are to receive up to 40 minimum wages within five business days. On 5 Horacio Cartes, leader of the ruling Colorado Party and the country's most influential politician, announced the party would support impeachment. After that Peña published a video: “History will judge the events we have had to live through today.”
The resignation was not accepted. The joint session of the chambers lost its quorum when Colorado deputies walked out of the hall. And in the Chamber of Deputies all 78 present voted to send the charges to the Senate. Deputies accuse the president of a conflict of interest, of placing pension funds in a troubled bank, and of oversight failure. A conviction in the Senate requires 30 votes out of 45. If Peña is removed, Vice President Alliana will become president.
The attorney general opened three criminal investigations, including into who and why state money was placed in Ueno. Charges have already been brought against 27 people from the bank and the Vázquez group. Peña himself is not among them yet. He said he will cooperate with the investigation.
We see a logic here worth remembering. Resignation closes the matter. Impeachment opens the case. The party that held the president just a week ago itself blocked his quiet exit. When pensions disappear from a bank, allies count not friendship but their own votes for the next elections.
Power that keeps money with its own people sooner or later pays it back to outsiders.
Telegram publication
