Paraguay President Peña resigns under mounting pressure from bank collapse

ASUNCION, Paraguay — Paraguayan President Santiago Peña resigned on Thursday following the collapse of a prominent digital lender to which he had former business links, putting him under intense pressure as nearly half the population was left without access to their bank accounts.

He was resigning “with the stability of our country, social peace, and the need to preserve our democratic institutions in mind,” Peña said in a recorded video address on Thursday.

The fallout from the collapse of the bank, called ueno, has already led to the resignation of Paraguay‘s central bank chief and the detention of eight ueno executives.

The crisis has undermined Paraguay‘s hard-won reputation as a stable destination for foreign investment, especially from neighboring Brazil. Paraguay‘s sovereign international bond prices tumbled following news of the resignation.

Opposition lawmakers had called an extraordinary session for Thursday to begin the process of filing an impeachment motion in Congress, as protesters demanded Peña’s resignation.

Peña, an ally of US President Donald Trump, lost the backing of members of his own conservative party ahead of the impeachment debate.

Despite his resignation, the session went ahead as planned. The lower house approved Peña’s impeachment while rejecting an impeachment motion against Vice…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/world