Peña offered to resign over a bank collapse; the Senate impeached him instead.

…(cont) By the weekend the chronology had moved past him. He was placed under house arrest, then transferred again, to a military facility, for his own safety, while his banner burned in the street outside. Offer to resign: denied. Ask for a delay: denied. Arrest. Move to a base. That is the order the receipts give it, and none of the four steps waited on the one before it to finish before the next one started.

The money did not wait either. Regulators seized the bank. Nearly three million account holders were locked out. Repayments are now under way. Protests continue, because under way is not the same as paid.

And the anger did not stay where it started. It has moved off Peña, now under arrest and charged, and onto Pedro Alliana, newly sworn in as his successor. Demonstrators are not naming one official; they are accusing Paraguay's political leadership, as a body, of failing the public while nearly three million accounts sat frozen. Alliana inherited the office. The receipts show he inherited the crowd with it.

Paraguay has asked this question of a transfer of power before. In 2012, after President Fernando Lugo was removed from office, the governments of Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela did not wait to render a verdict either — their presidents vowed not to recognize the administration that replaced him. The dispute then was over the legitimacy of a government seated by a different door than an election. The question now, aimed at Alliana, is the same question, asked by Paraguayans of their own new government instead of by neighbors across a border: does inheriting the office mean inheriting the public's trust, or only the paperwork.

There is no verdict on that question yet. There is a repayment schedule, three million account holders long, and it is still being worked one deposit at a time.