Bruce Mac Master resigned as head of Colombia’s main industry lobby on Thursday, 1 October 2026. In a letter to the board, he said “multiple pressures” had hurt the group’s ability to act freely and with autonomy. He had led the National Business Association of Colombia, known as ANDI, since 2013.
Semana published his full letter. La República summarised it.
A Lobby Cut Off From Government
Mac Master said he had planned to work with the government on the country’s challenges. Unexpected circumstances in recent weeks changed that. He said the board, its executive committee and he himself had tried everything to keep dialogue with the government open. “All those attempts were fruitless,” he wrote, according to Semana. “We tried and did not succeed.”
He also raised the question of institutional limits. Checks and balances, he said, were essential to the limits “that protect democracy,” Infobae reported. He added that he hoped his departure would help “recover the joint work between the national government and the business community.”
The exit followed weeks of tension with the government of President Abelardo de la Espriella. In early September, ANDI’s new board reconfirmed Mac Master as president until the end of 2027. Then came a reported order on 21 September keeping ministers away from him. Semana said the presidency would receive neither Mac Master nor anyone from ANDI while he held the post, and that the instruction went to all ministers. The Rio Times said it found no published written order. Accounts of the veto, it noted, rested on press reports, chiefly Semana.
Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara called the resignation “an autonomous decision within ANDI” and said he had nothing to comment. Speaking to reporters outside Congress, he described business associations as “spaces for dialogue” between companies and the government. “The more that communication flows and the easier it is, the better for both sides,” he said.
Members Walk Out
The association was already losing members. Last week, the sugar mills Incauca and Providencia and the firm Sucroal left, Semana reported. Coca-Cola FEMSA, a major bottler, left ANDI’s beverage chamber and said it was considering leaving the association entirely. Six days before resigning, Mac Master had defended staying put. “ANDI is much more than its president,” he wrote.
Mac Master is an economist who served as deputy finance minister in 2010 and 2011 and acting mayor of Cartagena in 2012. He also ran the Department for Social Prosperity, the government agency for social programmes. In the private sector, he worked as finance director at Propilco, Aceitales and Siderúrgica del Caribe, La República reported.
ANDI’s board must now choose a new president. Reports on 1 October named no successor. The first test, according to the report, is whether ministers resume meetings with the association.
Cabal Leaves the Party Uribe Founded
Separately, former senator María Fernanda Cabal left Centro Democrático, the right-wing party founded by former president Álvaro Uribe. She announced it in a social media livestream on Thursday evening, after 12 years in Congress with the party’s backing. She holds no congressional seat.
Cabal said she first tried an orderly exit. On 4 August she filed a formal request for an escisión, or split, seeking “an institutional, respectful and democratic exit” so both sides could address what she called doctrinal differences. “I waited for an answer because I considered this the right path,” she said, as quoted by El Tiempo. “To this day I haven’t received it.” She told viewers, per Caracol Radio: “Not acknowledging receipt is also an answer.”
She argued that the party’s base is right-wing but its ideas had blurred, particularly in the last campaign. “I feel there is a natural prejudice against the word ‘right’ on the part of President Uribe,” she said.
The break has a history. Centro Democrático chose Senator Paloma Valencia over Cabal and Paola Holguín as its 2026 presidential candidate. Valencia finished third in the first round on 31 May. De la Espriella won the June runoff and took office on 7 August. In January, Cabal and her husband, José Félix Lafaurie, challenged the selection process in a letter to the party’s director. Lafaurie, who heads the national cattle ranchers’ federation Fedegán, formally left the party on 24 February.
Centro Democrático thanked Cabal “for all these years of service” and said, “Colombia will never be a lost cause.” Uribe posted: “For Dr María Fernanda Cabal, always respect.” Cabal told Blu Radio, “I hold no grudge or resentment. What I do feel, in a way, is ingratitude.”
She will present her own movement on Saturday, 3 October, at 3 p.m. Names she floated include “Democracia y Libertad” and “Guardianes de la Libertad.” “The intention is to be a party,” she said. She wants to pick candidates for the 2027 regional elections as a step toward the 2030 presidential race, and hopes to be a candidate herself. She rejected a single party for the whole right: “This can’t be the only party of the right,” she said, comparing the idea to China’s Communist Party.
Caracol Radio reported that Cabal praised several of De la Espriella’s achievements and would back his agenda as long as she considered it good for Colombia. Her departure didn’t change the party’s congressional seats.
Why This Matters: Nothing changed in law this week. Mac Master’s exit altered no tax or trade rule. But ANDI is described as representing large companies in talks with the government on taxes, the budget and regulation, and those talks shape the rules that reach workers, consumers and taxpayers. If a major channel between the presidency and organized business stays closed, the question becomes how disputes get aired and settled in the open. Mac Master himself pointed to checks and balances as a limit that protects democracy. Cabal’s exit adds a second signal: the right is fragmenting while she promises, for now, to support the government. Whether ministers resume meetings with ANDI is the first measurable test of what comes next.