By Maria Carolina Marcello and Ricardo Brito

BRASÍLIA (Reuters) – The PP, party of the mayor, Arthur Lira (AL), the PDT, the PSB, União Brasil, the PSDB-Cidadania federation, Avante, Patriota and Solidariedade have decided to join a super bloc with 173 deputies , surpassing the bloc announced at the end of March with 142 deputies, said two congressional sources who followed the negotiations.

The details of the blockage are expected to be revealed this Wednesday afternoon at 5 p.m. in a press conference called by the leader of União Brasil in the Chamber, deputy Elmar Nascimento (BA).

Having a number in the House – read as votes – guarantees bargaining power and political capital to any parliamentary group that is formed. For this very reason, the new bloc, as soon as it is tabled, must establish itself as a political force that cannot be ignored by the government, if it wants to see the approval of the draft budgetary framework, which requires an absolute majority, and the Tax Reform Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC), which needs at least 308 votes in favor in two rounds of voting.

The new super bloc to be announced this afternoon brings together parties from various political backgrounds – from the PP, which supported the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro, to the PSB and PDT, more identified with left-wing agendas and allies of President Luiz Ignatius Lula da Silva.

The formation of the new bloc articulated by Lira obviously pleases the part of the PP which wants to align itself with the Lula government, in addition to placing the parliamentary group at the top of the list with preference in the definition of the rapporteurs of affairs and president of committees , he said, one of the sources.

And he explicitly manifests a reaction to the bloc of 142 deputies formed at the end of March by the MDB, the PSD, Podemos, the PSC and the Republicans – until then one of the acronyms of the so-called centrão alongside the PL and the PP.