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 Mir-Hossein Mousavi presidential campaign been receiving discouraging messages from "the higher officials", a hint possibly at the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and/or the then President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Mousavi was considered as one of the possible candidates of the reformist alliance to run in the Iranian Presidential election, 2005. However he officially turned down the invitation of a number of parties in the reformist alliance on October 12, 2004, after a meeting with President Mohammad Khatami and the two other high-ranking members of the Association of Combatant Clerics, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Mousavi-Khoiniha. Mousavi ran as an independent Principled Reformist candidate. Although he is