As a result, it became a coalition partner of the Christian Democrats (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Free Democrats (FDP) in the government of Konrad Adenauer. The DP vote fell to 3.3% with 15 seats in the 1953 election, although it retained its place in the governing coalition and again in 1957 when the DP went back up to 17 seats with 3.4% of the vote. A short-lived Free People's Party (FVP) had been formed in 1956 by Franz Blücher, Fritz Neumayer and others who had left the Free Democrats (FDP), but the following year the FVP merged into the German Party,[5] possibly contributing to a slight increase in the DP vote in 1957.