Santiago Peña was removed from office and detained after a historic day in Paraguay

ASUNCIÓN (Special Correspondent).– On a historic day that ended with his removal from office and subsequent arrest, Santiago Peña went, in a matter of hours, from the presidency of Paraguay to being placed at the disposal of the courts, amid the scandal over the collapse of Ueno Bank. The Prosecutor's Office requested his arrest as soon as the Senate voted him out of power, and the former president was detained that same night in a residential neighborhood of Asunción, about 20 minutes from the Legislative Palace. At 6:21 p.m., when there were 29 legislators signed up to speak in the Paraguayan Senate, the still-president, Santiago Peña, said his farewell: "I have submitted my resignation to avoid further damage to the country and to help restore tranquility to Paraguay. I do not want my presence to be a cause of further division or instability. I bid you farewell with gratitude, without ignoring the anguish of those who today await answers." Finally, at 6:51 p.m., the Senate voted to remove Peña by unanimous vote of the 44 legislators present, after Senator Carlos Núñez demanded the vote be accelerated: "We cannot remain governed by this criminal for one more minute." Protesters demand the arrest of former president Peña Fabián Marelli"In accordance with the result of the vote, the accused Santiago Peña Palacios is declared guilty of the charge of malperformance of his duties and, therefore, is removed as a matter of law from the office of President of the Republic of Paraguay," said the president of the Senate, Basilio Núñez. Minutes before 7 p.m., Peña ceased to be the president of Paraguay. In fact, no one expected any other outcome, since from the morning onward there was not a single word of support. There were around 70 speeches, but none defended him. The political fall had an immediate judicial consequence. As soon as the removal was completed, the Prosecutor's Office requested the detention of the former president, who was arrested that same night in a residential neighborhood of Asunción, about 20 minutes from the Legislative Palace. The news spread like lightning through the corridors of Congress and reached the square where protesters were celebrating his departure from power. In a matter of hours, Peña had gone from occupying the presidency to being at the disposal of the courts. Alliana's swearing-in Fabián MarelliThe whirlwind of events continued. And as the saying goes, "a new king follows a dead king." Five minutes after the meeting in the Senate ended, the bicameral session for the succession, headed by Hércules Pedro Alliana, had already been called."I do swear," he said at 7:49 p.m. Pedro Alliana delivered his first speech as president of Paraguay: "I ask God for composure"It was the end of a long day that began in the morning, when 44 senators sat down to establish quorum and begin the historic day of the impeachment trial. "The first duty of a ruler is to look after the fate of the most vulnerable. I also bow my head before the homeland, before the heroes who fought with blood," were his first words. Pedro Alliana receives the presidential sash Fabián Marelli"The citizens who are victims of this financial debacle will be fully compensated. I order that the necessary measures be taken so that the most vulnerable are compensated," he said, seated at the center of the bicameral assembly's rostrum, already wearing the presidential sash."I ask the ministers that travel be only for an unavoidable reason and that they work within the territory of Paraguay," said the leader who will have to complete Peña's term until August 2026. "In the time we have left, there is no excuse for errors," he said in a short speech in which he announced that he will send a legislative initiative to rationalize the State. Outside the Legislative Palace, in a square separated from the building by a fence, the protesters followed the vote on their cell phones. Although they took the removal for granted, they erupted in shouts and celebrations when the result was confirmed: 44 votes in favor and one senator absent. In the morning there had been only a few, but as the afternoon progressed, the square began to fill. While celebrations erupted in the square and senators hurried their steps to reach the larger chamber, where both chambers would meet, at the main steps, which had waited all day for Peña's arrival, the presidential Honor Guard arrived, a group of soldiers neatly dressed in red and white uniforms. The entrance of Santiago Peña's home, guarded by police officers CapturaThe new president, who arrived with his family, took the oath quickly and gave a short speech, after listening to the national anthem. He left quickly and the session continued with the designation of the vice president, now vacant after Alliana assumed the top office. The choice was Senator Antonio Barrios, known for being the personal physician of former president Horacio Cartes. The new vice president thanked precisely the former president, whom he referred to as a "friend." The power of CartesIt was the most concrete acknowledgment of Paraguay's true power: Cartes. It was precisely in his offices and from his pen that the strategy was executed which ended in Peña's impeachment. In fact, in those drafts are noted the names of several ministers and officials who will leave the Executive Branch in the coming days. The idea is that there will no longer be loyalists to Peña in important positions. Cartes's order. Since Monday, when Ueno Bank shut down its app and its branches, following the intervention of the Central Bank of Paraguay (BCP), Peña lost all his power, as was seen during the legislative day. Protesters burn an effigy representing Santiago PeñaDANIEL DUARTE / AFP - AFPIn the first minutes of the morning session, the question of whether or not to grant 72 hours of an extension requested by the then-president to mount his defense with a bit more time was at stake. In the first speeches before the recess there was a unanimous request that could be summed up in one sentence: "Not one more minute." There was a recess and, when the session resumed, a decision was made on the extension requested by Peña. It was almost a foregone conclusion: 39 decided not to grant those 72 hours, and the impeachment trial formally begins. In the corridors of Congress everything was frenzy, and the only thing being discussed was whether or not he would appear. "He's already in the basement," said a permanent staff employee, referring to Peña. But he never set foot in the Legislative Palace. Peña's defensePeña's lawyers sat to the right of the presiding officer, facing the deputies who act as prosecutors. Ferreiro was the first to speak, and there, in his brief address, the crux of the defense became clear. According to the lawyers, the trial is null for one simple reason: the president has already resigned, and therefore there is no possibility of applying this process to someone who no longer holds the office. The session of Congress that decided the removal of President PeñaDANIEL DUARTE - AFP"We took the case in the morning with very little notice and no information. The central argument of our defense is that the trial is null. Once again we ask that they let him resign so he can place himself at the disposal of the courts," said Ferreiro. "This trial has no validity because the president resigned; let us avoid international sanctions," he added. Preda maintained that line, though with arguments more legal than political. "By resigning, he can no longer be tried," he summed up. For now, the defense does not speak of innocence, but of the impropriety of the process. By nightfall, the defense's strategy was clear: Peña was no longer president because he had resigned. The point of this attempt was that, once removed from the presidency, he become a senator for life, as regulated in Article 189 of the Constitution. In Paraguay, democratically elected former presidents become senators for life, with a voice but no vote, and they do not count toward quorum. Only those who were subjected to impeachment and declared guilty are excluded. Protesters demonstrate in the vicinity of the Legislative Palace, where Peña's removal was being debated Fabián MarelliThat is why much more than the office was at stake in the Senate. Accepting the resignation would have meant a lifetime seat, which, according to the opinion of most of Paraguay's jurists, grants him parliamentary immunity. If, on the other hand, he were removed, he would lose that right and be exposed to the ordinary courts. That was the reason the protesters in the square demanded that the resignation not be accepted, to prevent Peña from being "shielded" as a senator for life. "There was no possibility of doing that. The mood in the streets is not right for such news," a senator confided in a corridor when asked by LA NACION in the early hours of the day. The charges deemed proven in the Senate for the removal were summed up in one concept: "Malperformance of the function." In one of the votes, for instance, Senator Rubén Velazquez summed it up when he said: "He set up a system for plundering public accounts. Santiago Peña was a shareholder of Ueno Bank and used public funds for personal benefit. There are three million people directly affected and six million indirectly because funds from state entities were lost. And the money being returned is not from Ueno Bank, it is from the system, from other depositors and other banks," he said. By Diego Cabot