 The Seventh Regional Congress, in 1980, was held in an atmosphere of crisis.The party leadership—with the exception of Assad and his proteges—were criticised severely by party delegates, who called for an anti-corruption campaign, a new, clean government, curtailing the powers of the military-security apparatus and political liberalization.With Assad's consent, a new government (headed by the presumably clean Abdul Rauf al-Kasm) was established with new, young technocrats.