By Daniela Desantis
ASUNCION, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Paraguay's Vice President Pedro Alliana became president after the country's Senate impeached and removed Santiago Peña amid a banking crisis that triggered major political backlash.
Peña lost the support of senior figures in the governing conservative Colorado Party after lawmakers blamed him for the collapse of digital lender ueno, which left millions of customers unable to access their accounts.
Alliana, 52, will serve out the remainder of Peña's term through August 2028.
A longtime Colorado Party leader who had hoped to cap decades of political activism with a presidential run in 2028, Alliana achieved his goal two years early.
He remained loyal to Peña until Monday, when he announced he was suspending his bid for the party's December primary elections while the government addressed the country's financial turmoil.
"I want to be president of the Republic," Alliana told reporters on Monday. "I think I have the capacity, I have the knowledge, I have the ideas."
In the same appearance, he said he was unwilling to take responsibility for mistakes made by others. The move was widely seen as a sign of growing distance from Peña as pressure mounted on the president over his handling of the crisis surrounding ueno. Peña had been a business partner in the group that owned the lender until March 2025.
For seven years, Alliana served as president of the Colorado Party, which has governed Paraguay for most of the last eight decades, and climbed the political ranks alongside former President Horacio Cartes.
"An Alliana presidency means policy continuity, dependence on Cartes and a weak mandate," said Mariano Machado, Americas principal analyst at Verisk Maplecroft. "Peña’s exit removes the main advocate of Paraguay’s investment case. Expect orthodox macroeconomic policy to continue, but with greater pressure for spending on patronage ahead of the 2028 elections."
Alliana has touted the close relationship between Paraguay and the United States, telling Infobae in an interview last August that the Trump administration's Shield of the Americas regional security initiative will allow Paraguay to better combat organized crime.
He has also firmly backed Paraguay's support for Taiwan, one of only 12 countries that maintain formal diplomatic ties with the island, as well as Israel.
The political crisis was triggered by questions over the supervision of major lender ueno and sparked street protests in Asunción earlier this week. The fallout also forced the resignation of Paraguay's central bank chief on Tuesday.
Before becoming vice president in 2023, Alliana spent a decade in the Chamber of Deputies representing the southern department of Ñeembucú, where he was born and where he also served as governor early in his political career. He is considered a reserved politician with deep ties to the Colorado Party establishment.
(Reporting by Daniela Desantis; Writing by Leila Miller. Editing by Lucinda Elliott and Sam Holmes)
