Mahmoud Kashani parliament. Kashani founded Islamic Republican Party with Mohammad Beheshti and Mohammad-Javad Bahonar and was secretary-general of the party from 1979 to 1981. He was appointed as head of the Iranian delegation to the International Court of Justice in Iran's case with the United States in December 1981 by then-Prime Minister Mohammad-Ali Rajai but was removed from his position by Mir-Hossein Mousavi. He was independent candidate in 1985 presidential election which receives 1,402,416 (10.1%) of the votes behind winner Ali Khamenei. He was also nominated in 2001 presidential election which he lost to Mohammad Khatami and was ranked as the 5th
2009 Mir-Hossein Mousavi presidential campaign been receiving discouraging messages from "the higher officials", a hint possibly at the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and/or the then President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Mousavi was considered as one of the possible candidates of the reformist alliance to run in the Iranian Presidential election, 2005. However he officially turned down the invitation of a number of parties in the reformist alliance on October 12, 2004, after a meeting with President Mohammad Khatami and the two other high-ranking members of the Association of Combatant Clerics, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Mousavi-Khoiniha. Mousavi ran as an independent Principled Reformist candidate. Although he is