Mir-Hossein Mousavi While a student, he was an active member of the leftist Islamic association of students. During his college years, Mousavi had a close relationship with the Freedom Movement of Iran, a religious-nationalist political party founded by Ali Shariati, whom Mousavi admired for many years. Although the party would not be invited to the post-revolution government, many future political leaders of Iran who were affiliated with the party at the time, among them Mehdi Bazargan, Yadolah Sahabi, Mahmoud Taleghani, and Mostafa Chamran would become Mousavi's closest allies. Mousavi was among the student activists who regularly attended Ali Shariati's lectures at Hosseiniyeh
Mir-Hossein Mousavi as well as the conservative newspaper "Jomhouri-e Eslami", supported Mousavi's candidacy, he did not receive the official backing of any major conservative party. His candidacy made it harder for the conservatives to support Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and large conservative parties, such as the Combatant Clergy Association, did not back the current President for a second term of office. Mousavi had on numerous occasions indicated his wish to change the constitution in order to remove the existing ban on the private ownership of television stations (currently all Iranian television stations are state-owned), as well as transfer the control of the law-enforcement forces