It is equally a contest between institutions of power and emerging civil society; between the old guards and the new generation; between the elected and the nominated institutions of power. All in all, while reformists upheld greater political freedom, economic openness, and social change and advocated defusing tensions with the outside world, the conservatives emphasized the supremacy of dogma in formulating policy. It is a profound and vigorous debate on such focal questions as religion and state, idealism versus national interests, isolationism against globalization and the preferred attitude to be adopted vis-à-vis the outside world.
