The Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) approved on Thursday its coalition with the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in his second term, giving Lula crucial support for his legislative agenda.

The decision was passed by the Political Council of the PMDB, with 57 favorable, two against and one abstention.

The council agreed with a seven-point agenda proposed by Lula, which includes pursuing political and tax reforms for achieving an annual economic growth of 5 percent in the next few years, tightening campaign-finance rules to combat corruption and battling income concentration.

PMDB's commitments to the agenda would not be a quest for positions in the cabinet, said PMDB President Michel Temer.

The centrist PMDB won 89 seats in the lower house and 18 seats in the upper house in October's general elections, becoming the party that has the largest number of seats in Congress. Lula needs PMDB's support to advance key political and economic reforms in Congress during his second term.

A united and nationally strengthened PMDB would be a great impulse to the reform that Brazil needed, said Tarso Genro, a government minister who congratulated the party's decision on behalf of Lula.

Source: Xinhua