[10] A pragmatist party,[6] it supported the governments of presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dilma Rousseff, Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro.

About this type of coalition, the former mayor of São Paulo and former PT member Luísa Erundina declared, still in May 2010, that "It is sad, agonizing to see Maluf's PP with PCdoB.

The party has from its very beginning shown a tendency for regional division, with the section from Rio Grande do Sul state often threatening with secession, in part due to what is viewed by them as condescendence of the party's national direction towards members involved in corruption scandals, including Paulo Maluf (who has recently been discharged from his post as de facto leader of PP).

[15] The party's main positions in Congress have been that of business interests supporting lower taxation, highlighing those proposals in accordance with other economic growth principles of the left.

When allied with the governments of Lula and Dilma, the party supported the Bolsa Familia program in confluence with tax cuts for economic growth.

[10] In more recent years, however, the party has become more stridently national conservative, representing the less religious and less populist conservatism that existed in Brazil before the election of Bolsonaro.