Although the party seemed poised to disappear in the beginning of the 1990s, it won a surprising result in the April 1992 state election in Baden-Württemberg. In the election, in which the party was headed by Schlierer, the Republicans won 10.9% of the vote and fifteen seats, and became the third largest party in the state. The party still failed to breach the 5% threshold in subsequent elections, although it won as much as 4.8% in the 1993 Hamburg state council election. Lack of further electoral successes resulted in new strife between the party's moderates and radicals, and in December 1992, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution decided to start surveillance of the party, categorizing it as a "party with partially extreme-right tendencies". Disgruntled by the poor showings in the 1994 "super election year", Schönhuber to much surprise agreed to establish cooperations with the DVU, a party that had always been denounced as "extreme-right" by the Republicans. The Republican leadership in turn hastily convened and dismissed Schönhuber as party leader, replacing him with Schlierer.