Pedro Alliana, a former Colorado Party chairman and close ally of Horacio Cartes, becomes president of Paraguay this Friday, one day after the Senate removed Santiago Peña from office.
Pedro Alliana had served as Vice-president since August 2023. He took the oath of office before Congress in an extraordinary session held Friday afternoon, hours after the Senate convicted his predecessor in a political trial.
The Chamber of Deputies approved the accusation unanimously on Thursday. The Senate resolved the case the following day and confirmed the removal. Alliana will now complete the presidential term that ends on August 15, 2028.
RELATED: Santiago Peña Removed From Office by Paraguay Senate in Ueno Bank Trial
“The Paraguay we receive today has urgencies that force us to be in the streets, the hospitals and the fields. What I come to promise is concrete: the compatriots who are going through a difficult moment as a result of this financial collapse will be fully compensated,” the new president told lawmakers, who shared office with the removed President.
Alliana ordered immediate steps to repay depositors, with priority for those least able to absorb the loss. “I do not want any lukewarm person in charge of this mission, I want results. My transparency is non-negotiable,” he stressed.
Pedro Alliana juró como nuevo presidente de Paraguay, tras la destitución de Santiago Peña.https://t.co/ASi4qayIoq pic.twitter.com/ZpnIeo1gss
— Corta (@somoscorta) November 6, 2026
Text reads: “Pedro Alliana was sworn in as the new president of Paraguay, after the dismissal of Santiago Peña.”
The promise responds to a crisis that left millions of Paraguayans unable to touch their own money. Ueno Bank, the sixth largest in the country by deposit volume, was intervened on November 3 after the Central Bank found its solvency ratio had fallen below 50% of the required minimum. Ueno Bank processed more than three million transactions every day, a measure of how many people depended on it.
Clients lost temporary access to their deposits once the intervention began. The freeze triggered mass protests in Asuncion against the bank and against Peña.
Peña presented his resignation on Thursday, but Congress refused to accept it. Lawmakers instead moved through the impeachment process, and the Senate removed him in a trial held in his absence.
Who Is Alliana
Hércules Pedro Lorenzo Alliana Rodríguez was born on February 19, 1974, in Pilar, the capital of Ñeembucú in southern Paraguay. His first major political post came at the departmental level. Alliana served as governor of Ñeembucú from 2008 to 2012, building the regional base that would carry him to the national stage.
From there he moved to the lower house of Congress, where he spent nearly a decade. He held a seat as a national deputy from 2013 to 2022, and between 2019 and 2022 he presided over the Chamber of Deputies, one of the most influential posts in Paraguayan politics.
Alliana’s rise cannot be separated from Horacio Cartes, the former President and dominant figure of the Colorado Party. Within the party’s powerful Honor Colorado movement, Alliana ranked among Cartes’s principal allies. That loyalty carried him to the party’s top position. Alliana chaired the Colorado Party from 2016 to 2023, steering the political machinery that has governed Paraguay for decades. The bond with Cartes shaped his entire trajectory. Honor Colorado controls much of the party structure, and Alliana’s decade in the lower chamber coincided with his consolidation as one of its most visible operators.
Now that loyalty yields the presidency itself. Following the impeachment of Santiago Peña, Alliana assumes the office once held by his political patron.
A Paradoxical Ascent
Alliana’s path to the presidency includes a striking irony: he survived an impeachment attempt of his own, one that never gained traction. He arrives in office after facing, paradoxically, an impeachment request that did not prosper: the Chamber of Deputies rejected it by 48 votes to 30.
That failed effort now stands in contrast to the fate of his predecessor. Santiago Peña could not muster the same defense, and the Senate convicted him in absentia for poor performance of duties tied to the collapse of Ueno Bank.
Alliana steps into a difficult inheritance. The financial crisis that brought down Peña erased an estimated 1.2 billion dollars and left nearly three million Paraguayans without access to their savings. Several legislators linked Alliana to the Ueno scandal during the impeachment hearings, a shadow that follows him into the presidency.
The office changes hands, but the political team does not. Alliana belonged to the coalition that supported Peña until the end, and critics have warned that the same circle now governs the country.
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