The Progress and Work party was formed to contest the 1951 elections.
Like most other Arab parties at the time, it was associated with David Ben-Gurion's Mapai party, as Ben Gurion was keen to include Israeli Arabs in the functioning of the state in order to prove Jews and Arabs could co-exist peacefully and productively.
In the elections, the party won only one seat,[1] taken by its leader, Salah-Hassan Hanifes.
[2] Saleh Suleiman took the second seat, and the party was again part of the coalition.
Both parties failed to cross the electoral threshold, with Progress and Work receiving 0.5% of the vote and the Independent Faction 0.4%.