The Mensalão scandal (, ) was a major parliamentary vote-buying scandal by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration that threatened to bring down his government in 2005. Mensalão is a neologism, a variant of the word for "big monthly payment" (salário mensal or mensalidade). The scandal broke on June 6, 2005 when Brazilian deputy Roberto Jefferson (Brazilian Labour Party) told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper that the ruling Workers' Party (PT) had paid a number of deputies 30,000 reais (around US$12,000 at the time) a month to vote for legislation favored by the ruling party. The funds allegedly came from state-owned companies' advertising budgets, funneled through an advertising agency owned by Marcos Valério. The investigation then implicated members of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, Democrats, Brazilian Democratic Movement Party and seven other political parties also involved. Many key advisers to Lula resigned, and several deputies were faced with the choice of resignation or expulsion from congress. The president himself went on to be re-elected in 2006, and in 2010 Brazil elected his chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, as president. Much of PT's leadership was affected in some way, with many resigning or failing to win re-election. Brazil's economy was widely perceived as not having been substantially impacted by the scandal. Roberto Jefferson, who initially sparked the scandal, was expelled from the Chamber of Deputies on September 14, 2005 for ethical violations determined by the Congressional Council of Ethics. Despite continued additional resignations, in October the scandal died down somewhat as Brazil held a contentious referendum on a banning gun sales, an initiative soundly rejected by voters. Origins When Lula was elected in 2003, his party held less than 20% of the seats in the Assembly. He put together a coalition of twelve parties, but since his appointees were primarily from his own party, the payments were intended to assure the continued support of other members of the coalition government. On September 18, 2004, Brazilian weekly magazine Veja printed a cover story entitled "Scandal: PT's buyout of PTB". The article described an alliance between the Workers Party (PT) and the Brazilian Labour Party (PTB). According to Veja, PT promised to pay R$150,000 to each PTB deputy if they would support the executive branch . Allegedly because these promises were not kept, a storm of corruption allegations against PT began in May 2005. On September 24, 2004, the Rio de Janeiro newspaper