Assad Bucaram

Assad Bucaram Elmhalin (24 December 1916 – 5 November 1981) was an Ecuadorian politician who occupied positions as city Councilor and later of Mayor of Guayaquil (1962–1963, 1967–1970). He was elected a Deputy for the province of Guayaquil and was later appointed President of the National Assembly of Ecuador.

Political career The son of Lebanese immigrants Abdalá Bucaram Abi Karam and Martha Elmhalin, Bucaram had little formal education but had a highly successful business career that made him very wealthy. In 1961 he took over the ailing Concentración de Fuerzas Populares party (CFP), a party that up to that point had presented an anti-oligarchic but anti-communist ideology in a similar vein to Peronism, and turned it into a personal vehicle for his populist appeals.

Personal life He married Olfa Perpetua Záccida in 1948 when she was sixteen years old and fathered eight children with her: Omar, Olfa, Avicena, Averroes, Jorge, Cecilia, Juan and Teresa. Averroes Bucaram followed his father as both a CFP deputy and President of the National Congress. He was an uncle of Abdalá Bucaram who would become President of Ecuador after Assad's death. Abdalá's sister Martha Bucaram was the wife of President Roldós.