Paraguay President Santiago Peña resigns following bank collapse

Paraguayan Pres­i­dent San­ti­a­go Peña re­signed Thurs­day af­ter los­ing the back­ing of his own par­ty, as protests rocked the cap­i­tal for a third day over the col­lapse of Ueno Bank, a ma­jor dig­i­tal lender tied to his gov­ern­ment that froze mil­lions of peo­ple’s sav­ings.

Peña an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion in a video post­ed to X, say­ing he was step­ping down to pre­serve the coun­try’s sta­bil­i­ty and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions while law­mak­ers gath­ered in­side the Leg­isla­tive Palace de­bat­ed his im­peach­ment.

“I have made the de­ci­sion to sub­mit my res­ig­na­tion as pres­i­dent of the re­pub­lic,” said Peña, a one-time in­vestor in a com­pa­ny re­lat­ed to Ueno Bank. “I do so think­ing of the sta­bil­i­ty of our coun­try, so­cial peace and the need to pre­serve our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions.”