Lorena and the crazy man who loves

Abdala Bucaram was President of Ecuador for six turbulent months.

Bucaram (on right) found here

In an effort to take attention away from a growing list of scandals and corruption allegations, Bucaram began to do what he did best – be himself. It started with the release of his music CD titled “A Crazy Man Who Loves”. Continuing to exploit the media, Bucaram shaved off his trademark moustache on live TV.

image found here

Alas, he had but one moustache to shave for his country, so he followed that up by inviting another famous/infamous Ecuadorian, Lorena Bobbitt, to have lunch with him at the national palace. Bucaram and Bobbitt both became godparents of the baby daughter of an Ecuadorean singer in the port city of Guayaquil. It isn’t known whether the cutlery included knives that day.

Lorena found here

President Bucaram not only attended the World Banana Queen contest, he grabbed the microphone and crooned to the winner, surrounded by scantily clad contestants. By this time, many in Ecuador had thought Bucaram’s antics had gone past comedic and into the realm of lunatic. When he slandered an ex-president by comparing him to a “burro” (donkey), he didn’t help matters. His public apology – not to the politician, but to donkeys – just made things worse.

Mr Bucaram cast a long shadow after he was stripped of his office on the grounds of mental incapacity in 1997 and the fabulous stories – of banknotes stuffed into rubbish bags and paintings removed from the walls of the presidential palace in the dying hours of his administration – began to come out. With demonstrations in the streets and the economy in shambles, the Ecuadorian Congress impeached Bucaram on the grounds of “mental disability” and he quickly flew to Panama to escape looming corruption charges.

image found here

In 2005 he returned to Ecuador after eight years in exile. First he descended from a helicopter into a pre-prepared adoring crowd (though not, as was his habit 20 years ago, in a Batman suit). Then he burst into song. Finally, he mounted a horse, declared himself “as crazy as ever”, and trotted with his lieutenants across a public park to Guayaquil’s waterfront, looking, in the words of a local lawyer whose office windows gave him a front-row seat, “like Attila and his Barbarian hordes”.

Gerard Butler as Attila the Hun found here