Mir-Hossein Mousavi of Foreign Affairs and eventually the post of Prime Minister. He was the last Prime Minister in Iran prior to the 1989 constitutional changes which removed the post of prime minister; he then went into semi-retirement for the next 20 years. He remains a member of the Expediency Discernment Council and the High Council of Cultural Revolution. However, he has not participated in their meetings for years, which is interpreted by political analysts and commentators as a sign of his disapproval. For the 2009 Iranian Presidential election, Mousavi came out of semi-retirement and ran as one of two Reformist candidates
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,