Ali Akbar Velayati health from November 1980 to July 1981 in the cabinet of Mohammad-Ali Rajai. After winning the presidential election on 13 October 1981, then President Ali Khamenei proposed Velayati as his prime minister to the Parliament of Iran, but Parliament voted against him on 22 October. Khamenei later proposed Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who gained Parliament's approval. In November 1986, Velayati argued that Iran should have diplomatic ties with all countries. During the premiership of Mousavi, Velayati served as the minister of foreign affairs. After the election of Hashemi Rafsanjani as president, he retained his post until 1997, when Rafsanjani's term was ended.
2009 Iranian presidential election eligible voters in no more than 50 cities. The Council argued its a normal phenomenon that took place in previous elections, as people are not obliged to vote where they had been born/registered. On 18 June, Iranian film makers Marjane Satrapi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf appeared before Green Party members in the European Parliament to present a document allegedly received from a member of the Iranian electoral commission claiming that Mir-Hossein Mousavi had actually won the election, and that the conservative incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad had received only 12% of the vote. Most of official objections to the election filed by Mousavi