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
Hayat-e-No the presidential election, the paper along with other reformist papers, including "Aftab Yazd" and "Eqbal", published the letter of presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi to Ali Khamenei. Upon this publication the papers were banned for one day by Tehran Public and Revolutionary Court. "Hayat-e-No" supported Mir Hossein Mousavi in the 2009 presidential elections held in June. In the immediate aftermath of the elections the paper was censored by the Iranian government. In December 2009 the license of the paper was revoked by the Press Supervisory Board “for working outside the regulations” and on 7 December it was closed down. "Hayat-e-No" and