the 1951 elections were a huge success, with the party winning 20 seats, making it the second largest in the knesset. the party was enlarged soon after the elections when the sephardim and oriental communities party and the yemenite association merged into it (though the one yemenite association mk left the party again before the end of the session). although it was not included in the coalition for the third government, it was brought into the fourth government after ben-gurion had sacked the ultra-orthodox parties, agudat yisrael and poalei agudat yisrael, over the dispute over religious education that had brought down the previous government. it was also included in moshe sharett's fifth government, but not the sixth.