Who is Pedro Alliana, the new president of Paraguay after the dismissal of Santiago Peña

In a matter of hours, Pedro Alliana went from being the vice president of Paraguay to becoming the country’s president.

Alliana was sworn in to the new position this Friday, shortly after Congress approved the dismissal of Peña, who is accused of an alleged conflict of interest due to his ties to the conglomerate that manages Ueno Bank.

The Central Bank intervened this week in the private financial entity after detecting solvency problems. The decision left millions of Paraguayans and various public institutions without access to their savings.

In the streets of Asunción, hundreds of people celebrated the Senate’s decision that ended Peña’s mandate.

“The compatriots who are going through a difficult time today due to the financial disaster will be fully compensated. We are not going to leave them alone,” Alliana announced this Friday during her inauguration speech before Congress.

But power did not change hands. The National Republican Association (ANR), known as the Colorado Party, managed to contain the political impact of the crisis.

“I thank my party and reaffirm my fidelity to its doctrinal postulates,” highlighted the new president, before a round of applause from the senators who were in the room.

Far from losing the presidency, the party managed to retain power with the replacement of Peña by Alliana, a Colorado leader who had already expressed his intention to run for office in 2028.

“Pedro Alliana is a political figure with a long partisan career,” Rocío Duarte, a doctor in Political Science and professor at the Catholic University of Asunción, tells BBC.

While former President Peña represented the technocrat specialized in finance, Alliana was always seen within the party as a guarantee of closeness to the territory and the Colorado militancy.

For Duarte, Alliana is a leader who knows the “bureaucratic structure of the party” throughout the country, which has allowed him to establish himself as a figure of great weight within national politics.

But what was the political journey that took him from the deep south of Paraguay to the Presidency of the Republic?

From Pilar to Asunción

“I come from Ñeembucú, a land where the country fought for its own life,” said the new president during his swearing-in before Congress this Friday.

Pedro Alliana was born in Pilar, a city where reddish dirt streets and old colonial adobe churches face the Paraguay River, facing the Argentine province of Formosa, Argentina.

It was in that city in the extreme south of Paraguay, far from the centers of power and more accustomed to looking towards the river than towards the López Palace, where he began the political journey that decades later would lead him to the presidency.

The son of a family linked to politics, he joined the ranks of the National Republican Association (ANR), or Colorado Party, at a young age, the conservative force that has dominated much of Paraguayan political history.

Unlike Peña, whose academic training and technical career were widely recognized, Alliana’s education has been surrounded by controversy.

The newspaper ABC Color reported that he studied International Relations at the San Sebastián Autonomous University, after verifying his background with the Ministry of Education.

According to files on the party’s official site, Alliana defines himself as a “country man.” A few years ago, the organization highlighted its knowledge of the needs of small, medium and large producers.

The electoral race began in 2006, when he unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Pilar. Far from marginalizing him from politics, that defeat ended up promoting his rise.

Two years later he became governor of Ñeembucú, the department where Pilar is located, the same year that the Colorado Party lost the presidency of Paraguay for the first time in history.

After concluding her departmental mandate, Alliana made the leap to Congress. He was elected deputy in 2013 and quickly consolidated his influence within the ruling party.

He came to preside over the Chamber of Deputies and renewed his seat for a second term, establishing himself as one of the most influential leaders within Colorado.

In this way, Alliana built over the years a career based on territorial work, which took him from the political periphery of Ñeembucú to the leadership of the Colorado Party.

“The Paraguay that we receive today has emergencies that force us to be on the streets, in the hospitals and in the countryside,” he said this Friday before a packed Congress, during his swearing-in ceremony as president.

Relationship with Horacio Cartes

In moments of delicate stability, within Paraguay different voices agree that Alliana could not have become president without the approval of former president Horacio Cartes.

“Alliana became very closely linked to former President Cartes since he entered the political arena, forming part of his close environment,” explains Rocío Duarte.

However, a few weeks ago, Alliana seemed to have distanced herself from Cartes.

According to Alliana, the rift occurred when Horacio Cartes tried to impose on his running mate ahead of the next presidential elections. However, after Peña’s fall, the situation changed.

On Thursday afternoon, the then vice president reappeared with Cartes at a Colorado Party meeting in which both supported the impeachment of the president.

“Because Cartes managed to stay out of the Ueno Bank crisis, it is likely that there will be a rapprochement between these sectors again,” adds the analyst.

Now, with the presidency in her hands, Alliana’s challenge will be to immediately overcome the crisis opened by the closure of Banco Ueno. Perhaps, that can help him build leadership that allows the Colorado Party to arrive well positioned in the 2028 elections.

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