Mir-Hossein Mousavi 2005. However, on 12 October 2004, he officially declined the proposal after a meeting with President Mohammad Khatami and the two other top members of one of Iran's main Reformist parties, the Association of Combatant Clerics, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Mousavi-Khoiniha. After 20 years of political silence, on 9 March 2009, Mousavi announced his intention to run in the 2009 Iranian presidential election. He stated that his main goals were: to institutionalize social justice, equality and fairness, freedom of expression, to root out corruption and to speed up Iran's stagnant process of privatization, and thus move Iran away from what
Mir-Hossein Mousavi in Shiraz, "Haft-e-tir Martyr's tomb" in Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra, and "Salman mosque" in the presidential residence are examples of his work. In recent years, he has been more active in painting and has participated in many exhibitions. Mousavi refused to run for the presidency in the 1997 elections, which caused the reformists to turn to his former Cabinet Minister, then a little-known cleric, Mohammad Khatami, who was elected by a landslide. During Khatami's administration, Mousavi served as the Senior Adviser to the President. Mousavi was considered the leading candidate from the reformist alliance to run in the Iranian presidential election,