Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to Ruhollah Khomeini. This led to the establishment of Expediency Discernment Council, which later he chaired the council. He had an active role in Iran–Contra affair, which was divulged by Mehdi Hashemi and failed. Mehdi Hashemi was executed but Rafsanjani was the loser at internal dimension. In October 1981 presidential election, when he voted to Ali Khamenei, he said it's vote of "Imam (Khomeini), clerics and the parliament". During differences between Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Khamenei, Hashemi cleverly managed to keep the position favor or against these two perspectives and take the middle position. According to Bahman Bakhtiari, at
Iranian Green Movement a regular presidential election. Former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi was the most popular candidate opposed to Ahmadinejad. The election took place on June 12, 2009 and rapidly caused the significant controversy caused by the disagreement between the government and the opposition over the results of the election. Ahmadinejad was considered to be winning in a landslide, but Mousavi and his supporters believed the results were fraudulent. They suggested that the Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli, an ally of Ahmadinejad, had interfered with the election and distorted the votes to keep Ahmadinejad in power. Mousavi claimed victory and called for his supporters