Slota became involved in politics after 1989 when the Communist Party fell from power in Czechoslovakia in the Velvet Revolution. In 1990 he co-founded the SNS and was elected as a member of the Federal Assembly. Later, he was elected into the National Council of the Slovak Republic. From 1994 to 1999 he served as the leader of the SNS. After an internal crisis in the SNS in 2001, he left the party and set up his own party, the Genuine Slovak National Party. As a result of this split, none of the nationalist parties received the required 5% minimum of votes in the 2002 election. In 2003, the nationalist parties merged again, after heavy quarrels, with Slota as chairman.