Mir-Hossein Mousavi he called "an alms-based economy". Mousavi criticized the then-current conservative President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for his alleged economic mismanagement, asking, when Iran "was making profits from the high prices of oil, did he (Ahmadinejad) envisage a situation when the prices would fall?" On 16 March 2009, the former Iranian President Khatami withdrew from the election in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi ran as an independent Principled Reformist candidate. Although he is one of the original founders of the Iranian reformist camp, he shares many principles of the conservatives. Many reformist parties, among them reformist Islamic Iranian Participation Front, whose main candidate
Hossein Shariatmadari Mir Hossein Mousavi was trying to "escape punishment for murdering innocent people, holding riots, cooperating with foreigners and acting as America's fifth column inside the country" and called for Mousavi and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami to be tried in court for "horrible crimes and treason." In 2009, during the first contested presidential elections, Shariatmadari was announced that Mohammad Khatami would risk the same fate of Benazir Bhutto if he was elected. After the elections, alongside the Green Party protests, Shariatmadari accused Mir Hossein Mousavi of being a fifth column of the US and causing the deaths of many people.