Bruce Mac Master resigned Thursday as president of ANDI, Colombia’s main industry lobby, after leading it since 2013. In a letter to the board, he said “multiple pressures” had damaged the association’s ability to act freely and carry out its functions with autonomy. Semana published the full letter; La República summarised it.
Mac Master said he’d planned to work with the government on the country’s challenges, but unexpected circumstances in recent weeks changed that. The board, its executive committee and Mac Master himself had tried to keep dialogue open, he wrote. “All those attempts were fruitless,” he added, according to Semana. “We tried and did not succeed.” He also said checks and balances were essential to the limits “that protect democracy,” Infobae reported.
A Lobby Cut Off From Government
The exit followed weeks of friction with President Abelardo de la Espriella’s government. In early September, ANDI’s new board had reconfirmed Mac Master as president until the end of 2027, Infobae reported. Then, on 21 September, came a reported order to keep 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 found no published written order. Press reports, chiefly Semana, are the basis for accounts of the veto.
Members started walking out. Last week, sugar mills Incauca and Providencia and the firm Sucroal left the association, 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, writing that “ANDI is much more than its president.”
Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara called the resignation “an autonomous decision within ANDI” and said he had nothing to comment. 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 told reporters outside Congress.
No law, tax or trade rule changed with the resignation. ANDI, described as founded 82 years ago, represents large companies in talks with the government on taxes, the budget and regulation. Its board must now pick a new president, and reports on 1 October named no successor. The first test, according to the report, is whether ministers resume meetings with the association.
Mac Master is an economist who served as deputy finance minister in 2010 and 2011, acting mayor of Cartagena in 2012, and head of the Department for Social Prosperity. In the private sector, he worked as finance director at Propilco, Aceitales and Siderúrgica del Caribe, La República reported.
A Right-Wing Split Over Process
On the political side, former senator María Fernanda Cabal left Centro Democrático, the party founded by former president Álvaro Uribe. She announced it in a social media livestream Thursday evening, after 12 years in Congress with the party’s backing. She holds no seat now.
Cabal said she’d first tried for an orderly exit. On 4 August she filed a formal request to split from the party, an escisión, seeking “an institutional, respectful and democratic exit.” No answer came. “Not acknowledging receipt is also an answer,” she told viewers, according to Caracol Radio. She argued 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 backdrop is a bruising year. Centro Democrático picked Senator Paloma Valencia over Cabal and Paola Holguín as its presidential candidate. Valencia finished third in the 31 May first round. De la Espriella, a right-wing lawyer, 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 cattle ranchers’ federation Fedegán, formally left the party on 24 February.
The party’s reply was gracious. It 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 said she held “no grudge or resentment,” then added: “What I do feel, in a way, is ingratitude.”
She will present her movement Saturday, 3 October, at 3 p.m. The name isn’t settled. Options she floated to Blu Radio 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 she hopes to be a candidate. She rejected the idea of one party for the whole right: “This cannot be the only party of the right,” she said, comparing it to China’s Communist Party.
Caracol Radio reported that Cabal praised several of De la Espriella’s achievements and would back his agenda while she considered it good for Colombia. Her exit wasn’t a formal split, since her escisión request was never granted, and it didn’t change the party’s congressional seats.
Why This Matters:
ANDI is the channel through which Colombia’s large companies talk to the government about taxes, the budget and regulation. If ministers keep their doors closed to it, that channel stays shut. Member departures may thin its voice further.
Nothing in law has changed, but access is a practical form of influence. Mac Master’s own words about checks and balances put the question of how much independent groups can push back on a new administration squarely in view. On the political right, Cabal’s planned movement tests whether the governing coalition will be one party or several. Her backing of De la Espriella, for now, suggests that competition could happen alongside support for the president’s agenda.