Abdalá Bucaram

Abdalá Jaime Bucaram Ortiz (Guayaquil, February 4, 1952) is an Ecuadorian politician and lawyer. The founder of the Ecuadorian Roldosista Party. He was president of Ecuador during the period between August 10, 1996 and February 6, 1997, which ended with his dismissal by the Congress of Ecuador (forty-four votes in favor of eighty-two possible) by mental incapacity to govern. He was a fugitive from Ecuadorian justice for twenty years, exiled in Panama, until the trials in which he was accused expired.

Currently, he is under investigation by the Prosecutor's Office for complicity in cases of critical corruption; in the purchase of medical supplies with excessive markups in hospitals of the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute. In addition to the alleged participation in the crime of organized crime in relation to the murder of an Israeli citizen in one of the prisons in Guayaquil; the same one who would have sold medical supplies to Jacobo Bucaram, son of Abdalá Bucaram. Added to this are also investigations in which he is a target for alleged trafficking of property and illegal possession of weapons.

Biography

Childhood and youth

Born in the city of Guayaquil, on February 4, 1952, son of Jacobo Bucaram Elmhalin, a Lebanese immigrant, and Rina Ortiz Caicedo. He is the eighth of twelve siblings: Martha (died in 1981), Betty, Linda, Isabel, Jacobo, Rina, Elsa, Santiago, Adolfo (died in 2016), Virginia and Gustavo.

His sister Martha Bucaram Ortiz was first lady of Ecuador during the presidential term of the former president of the Republic of Ecuador Jaime Roldós Aguilera, when the two died in an aviation accident on Cerro Celica in the province of Loja.

He completed his secondary studies at the Colegio Salesiano Cristóbal Colón in Guayaquil, obtaining his baccalaureate in 1970, the year in which he began his career in Medicine at the University of Guayaquil, a career that was interrupted after he had had a physical confrontation with a professor, which would prevent him from continuing to the second year, so he began his law career, eventually obtaining the title of Lawyer of the Courts of the Republic from the University of Guayaquil.

During his youth, he was part of the Ecuadorian Olympic athletics team as national flag bearer at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Later, during his presidential term, he was named president of the Barcelona Sporting Club de Guayaquil soccer team. sup>[citation required]

Marriage and offspring

In 1977 he married María Rosa Pulley Vergara with whom he had 4 children: Jacobo, Abdalá, Linda and Michel.

Children out of wedlock

On August 26, 2020, after suffering angina for which he had to be admitted to a hospital, it was learned that the former president had a son with Laura Machuca, Ecuadorian consul in Arizona; and four more children conceived with other couples while he was asylum in Panama. However, on September 29, 2020, through a press conference from his home, he revealed after a series of rumors that he has eleven children and not nine.

Political life

Abdalá Bucaram's public career began in 1979. In that year he was appointed Mayor of the Guayaquil Police in the government of President Jaime Roldos Aguilera, his brother-in-law. During his tenure, he carried out actions considered moralistic and charged with a religious character. ^{[ citation needed ]}

Ecuadorian Roldosista Party

Abdalá Bucarám Ortiz, takes the reins of the political project of Jaime Roldós, who at the time of his death was forming his own party: People, Change and Democracy (PCD). Abdalá denounced the death of his brother-in-law and sister as a conspiracy attack and decided to form the Ecuadorian Roldosista Party supposedly inspired by the principles of Jaime Roldós.

Mayor of Guayaquil, first exile and first presidential candidacies

With the support of the Ecuadorian Roldosista Party (PRE), he won the elections for the Mayor of Guayaquil on January 29, 1984. In November 1984, he was sentenced to four days in prison for criticizing the Armed Forces of Ecuador., whom Bucarám accused of "not being useful for anything other than spending money and parading on civic days." Because of this conviction, he decided to self-exile to Panama in September 1985.

In exile, Abdalá Bucaram was arrested in Panama for drug possession. According to investigations, members of the international liaison office of the Panama Defense Forces placed a kilo of cocaine in Bucaram's vehicle by order of the then president of that country, Manuel Antonio Noriega, who previously had several telephone contacts with León. Febres-Cordero Ribadeneyra, on that date the first president of Ecuador.

The National Congress later granted him amnesty to influence the 1988 presidential elections in Ecuador. He returned to Ecuador in 1987. He ran for president, reaching the second round but was defeated by Rodrigo Borja Cevallos, having to seek asylum again in Panama in 1988 when he had an arrest warrant for his previous trials for embezzlement being reactivated.

The PRE bench in the 1990 National Congress attempted to grant amnesty to Bucaram, which caused a violent fight between the Roldosista legislators and the Christian Democrats, resulting in legislators Jamil Mahuad and Vladimiro Álvarez suffering serious injuries. Bucaram's amnesty did not prosper, but he ended up returning to the country in 1990 when his case was dismissed in the courts. In 1992 he ran for president again in the 1992 Ecuadorian presidential elections and reached third place in the voting..

Third presidential candidacy

Bucaram began his campaign for the presidency for the third time, contesting in the 1996 presidential elections in Ecuador, with Rosalía Arteaga as the candidate for vice presidency of the Republic, who was a minister in the outgoing government of Sixto Durán Ballén, and the first woman to occupy a ministerial position.

Presidency of Ecuador

He was Constitutional President for 5 months and 25 days. He took office on August 10, 1996 and was dismissed on February 6, 1997.

He arrived with a government plan with three axes: economic adjustment, peace with Peru and housing for the popular sectors. It took 113 days to prepare and announce the adjustment plan that would last at least 10 years.

His style of government was informal, holding his cabinet meetings in various cantons of the country instead of the Carondelet Palace - Government Palace -, he held popular shows under the auspices of the ruling party such as a concert with the Uruguayan band &# 34;Los Iracundos", a Telethon with the president as host, in addition to having frequent appearances on entertainment programs on television.

His government was plagued by corruption scandals and poor administration, as was the case of 'Un Solo Toque', an emblematic housing plan and main campaign offer, delivering 13 thousand houses with telephones in Durán to the successful bidders registered in the plan, but received criticism for the lack of urban planning in its implementation, in addition to not complying with the plan at the national level.

He implemented a popular eating plan, creating the 'Abdalact' milk brand, which received harsh criticism for its low quality and contamination, in addition to the government's messianic and personalistic desire. The 'School Backpack' project was created, in which low-income children would be given a backpack with all the school supplies, books and daily school breakfast, which was the root of a corruption scandal and diversion of funds, as said plan never materialized, accusing the opposition of the Minister of Education of corruption and also of falsifying her PhD degree. He was accused of nepotism, receiving strong criticism for this, in particular for having appointed his brother Adolfo as Minister of State and his son Jacobo as director of Customs. Accusations of diverting funds from the Christmas Telethon in favor of the poor sponsored by the government to the ruling party were also added. He was also criticized for appointing a Governor of the province of Pichincha, whose functions were usually delegated to the prefecture and municipalities. of the province, Mauricio Rojas being appointed to the position.

His economic plan was based on the convertibility of four new sucres per US dollar, fully backed by the international monetary reserve. He also implemented a neoliberal economic and financial system devised by Argentine economist Domingo Cavallo that increased the cost of basic services such as domestic gas, electricity, drinking water and telephones, producing strong nationwide protests and strikes that accelerated his overthrow.

Dismissal

Former presidents Osvaldo Hurtado and Rodrigo Borja Cevallos, two-time presidential candidate Jaime Nebot and former presidential candidates Rodrigo Paz, Freddy Ehlers, Frank Vargas Pazzos, Ricardo Noboa and Juan José Castelló met on February 3, 1997 at the Federation of Oil Workers, to openly request that "a political reform be promoted that will be the work of a concerted constitutional transitional government and that Congress be convened extraordinarily on February 5" 1997. In Quito, metropolitan mayor Jamil Mahuad brought together social movements to depose the president. In Cuenca, Mayor Fernando Cordero Cueva and Archbishop Alberto Luna channeled the city's opposition against the President of the Republic. After popular demonstrations in the country, especially in the city of Quito, on February 5, 1997, a series of social organizations call for a march in all the cities of the country, to express their repudiation of the Bucaram administration.

The deputy of the Social Christian Party, Franklin Verduga, presented a motion in the National Congress with the aim of removing him from the presidency of the republic, alleging mental incapacity. The motion was supported by 44 deputies of the Social Christian Party and Popular Democracy.

Its supporters allege that it was carried out without any medical examination and with 44 votes out of a possible 82, which represented a simple majority. Based on the constitutional concept of succession, its vice president Rosalía Arteaga assumes the presidency of the republic without authorization from Congress, since the presidential succession to the vice president had been repealed months before by the Legislature, at the same time that the National Congress of Ecuador designates, under the controversial figure of interim president of the Nation (due to the non-existence of the position in the Ecuadorian Constitution), to the then President of Congress, Fabián Alarcón. This gives way to the event known as the Night of the Three Presidents in the country.

The joint command of the Armed Forces of Ecuador directed by the Commander in Chief, General Paco Moncayo, on national television states that the Armed Forces maintain a neutral point of view on the political situation in the country. Bucaram leaves the country in flight from the city of Guayaquil to his third self-exile in Panama with a stopover in Buenos Aires on February 8, 1997.

Ministers of State

Did you mean:

Vida Post Presidencial

Bucaram, from his self-exile, directed the policies and decisions of the Ecuadorian Roldosista Party until its extinction. In 1997, the former president was prosecuted for embezzlement, for allegedly having transferred 11,000 million sucres from the Reserved Expenses of the Presidency, to the accounts of security agents of the Carondelet Palace in the last days of his presidency, and was accused of another case of embezzlement due to overpricing in the purchase of supplies from the failed 'School Backpack' project.

Due to the trials against him, Bucaram requested political asylum from the Panamanian government, which was granted starting in 1997, and renewed by all governments, with the country granting him permanent asylum in 2009. He has frequently requested justice Ecuadorian state to declare the prescription of the sentences against him, in addition to temporary safe passage due to family situations, this being denied by the justice system.

Did you mean:

"Pichi Corte Y#34; y breve retorno

In 2004, President Lucio Gutiérrez faced a legislative process to remove him. Seeking to avoid this procedure, Gutiérrez agreed with Bucaram to use the votes of like-minded and own deputies in Congress, seeking to dismiss the Supreme Court of Justice to deactivate the trials against Bucaram.

Guillermo Castro Dáger's close friendship with Abdalá Bucaram made it easier for Castro, as President of the Judicial Branch, to annul all trials against Bucaram and other dissidents on April 1, 2005. That same day, Bucaram arrived by helicopter at the city of Guayaquil and advanced in a van to his platform to address his supporters. During his first political rally in eight years, he assured that he would start a Bolivarian Revolution similar to that of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and took advantage of mocking his rival León Febres-Cordero Ribadeneyra.

The citizen opposition to the Supreme Court established for political reasons managed to get President Lucio Gutiérrez to annul the so-called "Pichi Corte" and put the trials against Abdalá Bucaram back into effect. President Gutiérrez attempted to rectify the situation, but he was removed from office. Bucaram thus lost the protection granted by Gutiérrez, having to leave the country, again to Panama, for a fourth and final exile that would last until 2017.

Prescription of sentences and last return in 2017

In April 2017, the National Court of Justice declared the statute of limitations for the two embezzlement trials that Bucaram was facing: School Backpack and Reserved Expenses. As well as the theft of money in sacks during his escape when he was dismissed after the maximum sentence for both trials had elapsed, 20 years, and the arrest warrant against him was also withdrawn. On June 15, 2017, Abdala Bucaram arrived early to the city of Guayaquil on a private flight, holding a welcome rally on June 17 in the suburb of Guayaquil, where he arrived by helicopter, in which he gave his support to the President Lenín Moreno, announcing that he will return to active politics and that he would run for the position of mayor of Guayaquil or Prefect of Guayas in the 2019 sectional elections.

Arrest

At dawn on June 3, 2020, the State Attorney General's Office carried out a series of raids in several locations in the cities of Quito and Guayaquil due to corruption scandals in hospitals and public entities and overpricing in purchases of medical supplies in the middle of the health emergency due to the coronavirus disease pandemic in Ecuador. Among the sites raided was the Bucaram house, where nearly 5,000 rapid tests, 2,000 masks and a series of medical supplies were found that the Prosecutor's Office is investigating as belonging to those acquired by the Teodoro Maldonado Carbo Hospital of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security, in addition to finding a firearm on the property of the former president, who did not justify the reason for its possession. Bucaram alleged that the weapon was a gift from General Paco Moncayo, who during his government was Chief of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and played a key role in the removal of Bucaram from the presidency in 1997. Moncayo, however, denied that he gave him the weapon personally.

At a press conference, Attorney General Diana Salazar stated that Bucaram's arrest was due to the discovery of medical supplies in his residence, which coincide with the embezzlement investigation at the Teodoro Maldonado Carbo Hospital, but not because of the illegal possession of weapons for which he was initially detained. Around midnight on Thursday, June 4, 2020, the Criminal Guarantees judge, Ismael Figueroa, ruled as a precautionary measure house arrest for 30 days against Bucaram for the alleged crime of illicit trafficking in firearms, while the tax investigation lasts.

During the early hours of August 12, 2020, a police operation was carried out at his home, in the city of Guayaquil, arresting him for alleged organized crime, in addition to his possible transfer to the country's capital at the request of the Prosecutor's Office. General of the State, due to the investigation into the death of the Israeli citizen, Shy Dahan, involved in the corruption case of the sale of medical supplies in which his son Jacobo Bucaram Pulley, who was murdered in the Litoral Penitentiary during the early morning of August 8.

Decorations and merits

• Gran Collar de la Orden Nacional de San Lorenzodesignated as Grand Master of the Order of highest rank in Ecuador, presided by the President of the Republic of turn.

Additional references

• Pérez Pimentel, Rodolfo: Biographical Dictionary Ecuador, Volume 5 – Abdala Bucaram Ortiz Archived on 17 August 2012 in Wayback Machine.
• Fundación CIDOB – Abdala Bucaram Ortiz (Biography)