Frustrated voters had an opportunity to channel their resentment against inflation and war profiteers against specific targets, and to transfer the responsibility for those ills to the Social Democrats. Reichstag elections were held 7 December 1924. Cabinet formation was complex, taking until 15 January. The result was a bourgeois coalition of rightist and center parties in the "Rechtsblock" under Hans Luther as Chancellor. The SDP went into opposition against the coalition of the Center, DVP and DNVP, and it promised the Luther government a "ruthless fight." Barmat was one of Weimar's biggest media scandals, due principally to the upcoming election for President in April 1925. Ebert was a formidable contender for re-election and the right-wing press saw an opportunity in Barmat to score political points. Ebert had died and Braun was the SPD candidate. The Barmat Scandal was bandied about in the press in preparation for the Presidential election and it also appeared as a topic at right-wing political rallies. The right-wing Nationalpost stated the theme: The Barmat scandal was not just a tale of corruption within the Prussian State Bank or the Postal Ministry. It was rather a scandal of Social Democracy itself. Leading Social Democrats, it contended, had improperly used political influence to secure favorable treatment (such as loans and contracts) for the Barmats, in exchange for payments and other financial benefits that flowed both to themselves individually as well as to the party. Political leaflets were distributed throughout the countryside based on the history of the scandal. No candidate secured a majority in the first round of elections, so under the Weimar Constitution a second round of elections had to be conducted. In this round, the SPD aligned with the Center through a political deal: the SPD candidate Braun withdrew from the Presidential race and was elected president of Prussia on 3 April 1925 with the Center's support; and in return the SPD supported Marx (the Center party candidate) for Reich President. At this point the right-wing abandoned its first-round candidate Jarres and instead offered up General Paul von Hindenburg as its candidate. The right-wing Reichsblock called the Center-SPD coalition the Barmatblock, and leaflets and pamphlets that painted the center-leftist coalition with the Barmat scandal were distributed widely throughout Germany. Hindenburg won on April 26 by a margin of 900,000 votes, largely as a result of his appeal to new voters who had stayed home in the first round.