A leading centrist party is threatening to leave Brazil's governing coalition next week in a move that could jeopardize the president's reforms in Congress and pressure him to give it more Cabinet posts.

The Brazilian Democratic Party Movement -- Brazil's largest in terms of members -- is the second-largest in the lower house of Congress and has always been deeply split in its support for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government.

A spokesman for party leader Michel Temer said on Friday about 400 of the 708 delegates would vote for pulling out of the center-left government at the party's Dec. 12 convention. A simple majority will decide.

"The pro-government wing is going to have to go to great efforts to please President Lula and avoid the split," said Geddel Vieira Lima, a lawmaker from the anti-government faction."I don't see us remaining in the government base because it is not the will of the party."

The long-awaited decision has contributed to virtually nothing being voted in the lower house of Congress -- where the party's anti-government faction represents nearly half its lawmakers -- since October local elections.

Local delegates of the party, known by its Portuguese acronym PMDB, already voted in eight of Brazil's states, including heavily populated Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, to leave the government.

Supporters of the split, including Temer, want the PMDB's two cabinet ministers to quit and would like to field a presidential candidate in 2006 elections to challenge Lula.

Political analysts have suggested Lula's Workers' Party could offer the PMDB the 2006 vice presidential ticket or more cabinet positions to persuade it not to leave."I need the PMDB in my government," Lula said last week.

Investors see reforms that have been stuck in Congress for months, such as an overhaul of the legal system and bankruptcy laws, as cutting the costs of doing business in Brazil.

Sen. Renan Calheiros, one of the party's most powerful politicians, suggested that even if the numbers go against his own position of remaining with the government, ultimately negotiations can prevent a break with the government."The question is not about numbers, it's about politics," Calheiros said.

(From Reuters, Dezembro 03, 2004)

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