in the 1998 election, the party run for parliamentary seats within the coalition (later party) slovak democratic coalition (sdk), so that many candidates of the democratic party got into the parliament as candidates of the sdk. in the course of the subsequent dissolution of the slovak democratic coalition in 2001, some members left the democratic party (ivan mikloš, for example, became a chairman of the newly founded slovak democratic and christian union), and františek šebej became the new chairman for short time and was quickly replaced by ľudovít kaník.