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Mir-Hossein Mousavi

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Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh
میرحسین موسوی خامنه
Mousavi with a green shawl, marking his presidential campaign color. (2009)
Prime Minister of Iran
In office
31 October 1981 – 3 August 1989
PresidentAli Khamenei
LeaderRuhollah Khomeini
Ali Khamenei
Preceded byMohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani (Acting)
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office
15 August 1981 – 15 December 1981
Prime MinisterMohammad-Javad Bahonar
Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani (Acting)
Preceded byMohammad-Ali Rajai
Succeeded byAli Akbar Velayati
Personal details
Born (1941-09-29) 29 September 1941 (age 83)
Khameneh, Iran
Political partyIndependent
SpouseZahra Rahnavard
Alma materNational University of Tehran

Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh (Template:Lang-fa, Mīr-Hoseyn Mūsavī Khāmené; born 29 September 1941) is an Iranian reformist politician, painter and architect who served as the fifth and last Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Mousavi is currently the president of the Iranian Academy of Arts and was a candidate for the 2009 presidential election.

He was the last Prime Minister in Iran before the 1989 constitutional changes which removed the post of prime minister. Before that, he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He is also 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. In the early years of the revolution, Mousavi was the editor-in-chief of the official newspaper of the Islamic Republican Party, the Jomhouri-e Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper. In 2009 presidential election, Mousavi chose green as his campaign color, a color which has since become pervasive in Iran.[1]

Early life and career

Mir-Hossein Mousavi was born on 29 September 1941 in Khameneh, East Azarbaijan, Iran.[2] His father, Mir-Esmail, was a tea merchant from Tabriz. Musavi grew up in Khameneh, and moved to Tehran following his graduation from high school in 1958.[3] Mousavi is a relative of fellow Khameneh native Ali Khamenei: Mousavi's grandmother is Khamenei's paternal aunt.[4]

As a young man in the early sixties, Mousavi had a close relationship with the Freedom Movement of Iran.[5], a religious-nationalist political party founded by Mehdi Bazargan, Yadolah Sahabi, Mahmoud Taleghani, Mostafa Chamran, and Ali Shariati. Mousavi was among the student activists who regularly attended Ali Shariati's lectures at Hosseiniyeh Ershad of Tehran. [5]

He earned his undergraduate degree in architecture from the National University of Tehran (now Shahid Beheshti University) [3], and in 1969 his master's degree in architecture from the National University of Tehran[6], focusing primarily on traditional Iranian architecture[3]. While a student, he was an active member of the leftist Islamic association of students.[3]

In 1969, Mousavi married Zahra Rahnavard, a fellow university student who specialized in sculpture, and was among the well-known students of Ali Shariati.[5] Rahnavard later became the Chancellor of Alzahra University as well as political adviser to Iran's former President Mohammad Khatami.[7]

Mousavi and his wife had an active role in the success of the Iranian revolution.[8] He was imprisoned for organizing street protests against the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.[3][5] As the Iranian revolution neared, Mousavi, whose earliest political hero was Che Guevara,[9] became more actively involved in the struggle. Soon he joined ranks with Mohammad Beheshti, who was a close associate of the revolution leader, Ruholah Khomeini.[5]

The Shah left Iran for exile in January 1979, and several weeks later Ruholah Khomeini returned to Tehran.

Mousavi helped Mohammad Beheshti found the Islamic Republican Party in 1979, in order to assist the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran and hasten the overthrow of Iran's monarchy.[3] He became the political secretary of the party,[5] and chief editor of Jomhouri-e Eslami, the party's official newspaper.[5]

In mid-1979, he was appointed by Khomeini to the Iranian Council of Islamic revolution.[10] As the chief editor of Jomhouri-e Eslami, he was a loud critic and opponent of Abolhassan Banisadr, the first president of the Islamic Republic, until the latter's 1981 flight to France, following a successful impeachment by parliament. [11]

In August 15 1981, as part of the restructuring of the government in Mohammad Ali Rajai's cabinet, Mousavi was appointed foreign minister.[5] He held the post for five months until December 15, 1981, when he received the higher appointment of prime minister.[3]

Prime minister

In August of 1981, President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar were assassinated in an explosion. Ali Khamenei was then elected as the third president of Iran in the Iranian presidential election, October 1981. He put forward Ali Akbar Velayati as his prime minister, but the Iranian parliament did not give him the vote of confidence, and he was defeated with a vote of 80 to 74.[5] Subsequently, Ali Khamenei, though he had strong disagreements with Mousavi, as a compromise with the left-leaning parliament, agreed to offer him, Mousavi, for the post of premier. [5] On October 28, the parliament approved Mousavi with a vote of 115 to 39.[12] Mousavi became the 79th prime minister of Iran on 31 October 1981.[2], and remained the prime minister of Iran until 3 August 1989, for eight years.[5]

The conflicts between Mousavi, who belonged to the left wing of the Islamic Republic, with Ali Khamenei (the current leader of Iran), who belonged to the right wing of the Islamic Republic, continued during their eight years of shared governance.[5] However, an escalation in conflicts between the two led to Mousavi's resignation shortly after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.[5] As the prime minister, Mousavi had the full backing of Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader, and he refused to accept his resignation. Mousavi is remembered as leading a government that did not tolerate dissent.[8]

Mousavi's premiership coincided with the Iran-Iraq war. He guided the country through its war with Iraq, and earned popular acclaim for his stewardship of the national economy.[3] He pioneered a bond-based economy, which many believe was responsible for a fair distribution of goods among the people throughout the Iran-Iraq war.[13]

Many analysts praise his handling of Iran's economy, his civil and economic leadership during the Iran-Iraq War, and his efforts to end Iran's international isolation.[14] Others remember him as being "unpredictable" and less able to navigate Iran's labyrinthine political system than were his rivals.[15] In 1986, Mousavi played a great role in the Iran-Contra affair and secret negotiations and dealing with USA on helping them free the American hostages in Lebanon, in return for sale of the American weapons and spare-parts that Iran's army badly needed for Iran-Iraq War.[3]

Shortly after the end of Iran-Iraq war on 20 August 1988, Ruhollah Khomeini died, and Ali Khamenei was elected as the new Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts. Following his death, Mousavi and his fellow left-wingers lost their main source of support within the establishment.[5]

During the parliament hearing on post-war reconstruction plans, Mousavi had heated arguments with Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of Iran's parliament at the time, over Rafsanjani's suggestion that Iran accept the offer of western countries to help with post-war reconstruction.[8]

On July 28 1989, the constitution was amended and approved by Iranian voters in a national referendum with a 97% yes vote. At this time, Mehdi Karrubi had been elected as the new speaker of the parliament, to whom the amended constitution was declared. [16] According to one of the amendments, the prime minister's position was abolished.[2]

Hashemi Rafsanjani was also elected as the fourth president of Iran on 28 July 1989 and became the president on 3 August 1989. Mousavi's premiership, ended on the same date.[2] He was the 79th and the last prime minister of Iran, since the constitutional revolution in 1906.

Mousavi was not invited to be a participant in the new government headed by Rafsanjani, and disappeared from the public sphere.[3]

Retirement from politics

When Khomeini, the founder of Islamic Republic, died in 1989, and the appointment of Ali Khamenei to Supreme Leader (whom Mousavi disapproved of from the earliest years of the revolution), Khamenei removed the post of prime minister, and Mousavi was no longer welcome in the regime.[3] He retired from politics and returned to architecture and teaching, becoming the president of the Academy of Arts of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was almost totally absent from public life, which many consider as a sign of his disapproval of the establishment regime.[3]

Past elections

Mousavi refused to run for President 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, 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. [citation needed]

2009 presidential election

Main article: Mir-Hossein Mousavi presidential campaign, 2009
File:Mir Hossein Mousavi in Zanjan by Mardetanha 0814.jpg
Supporters of Mousavi's 2009 presidential campaign

After 20 years of political silence, on March 9, 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 he calls "an alms-based economy".[17] Mousavi criticized the current conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his alleged economic mismanagement, asking, when Iran "was making profits from the high prices of oil, did he (Ahmadinejad) envisage a situation when the prices would fall?"

On March 16, 2009, the former Iranian President Khatami withdrew from the election in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi.[18]

Goals for presidential term

Mousavi has 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 to the President (so that they represent the people, since the people directly elect the President through popular vote) from the Supreme Leader.[19] He has said that "the issue of non-compliance with the Iranian rules and regulations is the biggest problem that the country is currently faced with" and that he wishes to put in place ways to enforce the laws further,[20] and that it is also important to bring an end to keeping people in the dark about government matters.

Outcome of election

"Previously, he was revolutionary, because everyone inside the system was a revolutionary. But now he's a reformer. Now he knows Gandhi – before he knew only Che Guevara. If we gain power through aggression we would have to keep it through aggression. That is why we're having a green revolution, defined by peace and democracy."

— Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Mousavi's spokesman, June 19 2009 [21]

The election was held on June 12, 2009. The official results show Ahmadinejad winning by a landslide, though Mousavi and many others believe the results to be fraudulent, suggesting that the Interior Minister, Sadegh Mahsouli, an ally of Ahmadinejad, interfered with the election and distorted the votes to keep Ahmadinejad in power.[22] Mousavi has claimed victory, and called for his supporters to celebrate it. There have been large protests as a result [23] .

Platform

Mousavi delivering a speech in Zanjan

Domestic policies

In his first press conference since the start of Iranian New Year in March 2009, Mousavi stated his policies on how he will govern the country.[24] Among his policies are creation of a free environment for the flow of information and corrections to the national budget.[25] He wants to promote the creation of private, non-governmental TV networks[26] and stop the operation of the "Moral Police".[27] He has spoken about his opposition to massive changes in ministries which he claims is what Ahmadinejad has done.

Regarding the Iranian nuclear program, his plan includes reducing the cost by opposing radical approaches while maintaining what he sees as "Iran's right to civilian nuclear technology".[28] Mousavi has stated that giving up the country's nuclear program would be "irreparable" and that the Iranian people support the nuclear program. [28] "No one in Iran will accept suspension," Mousavi has said, adding that if elected, his policy would be to work to provide "guarantees" that Tehran's nuclear activities would never divert to non-peaceful aims.[29]

He has also vowed to review laws that discriminate against women in Iran. He has said that he would seek to disband the so-called morality police force and ensure that Iranian women are treated equally, with the ability to attain financial empowerment and to serve at the highest levels of decision making bodies.[30]

Foreign policies

Mousavi has directly addressed activating foreign policy to boost national interest by reducing tensions with other nations. This includes negotiating with U.S. President Barack Obama if "his actions are in keeping with his words".[25] He has condemned Ahmadinejad's attitude toward the The Holocaust (namely, that it was a "a myth"), and condemned the killing of Jews in the Holocaust.[28]

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Even Iran Can Change". Peyvand. 06/11/09. Retrieved 2009-06-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ a b c d "Biography: Mir-Hossein Mousavi". Rianovosti. 09/06/2009. Retrieved 2009-06-21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mousavi, Hossein Biography
  4. ^ Patrick Martin (2009-06-23). "The rebirth of an Iranian revolutionary". THE GLOBE AND MAIL. Retrieved 2006-06-24.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "زندگی‌نامه نامزدها: میر حسین موسوی" (in Persian). BBC Persian. 21 May 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
  6. ^ "میر حسین موسوی کیست؟" (in Persian). siavashon. 18 october 2008. Retrieved 2009-06-21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ "A First Lady for Iran". Zeldaily. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
  8. ^ a b c "Profile: Mir Hossein Mousavi". BBC. 16 June 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
  9. ^ Different This Time by Jon Taplin, Talking Points Memo, June 17 2009
  10. ^ Brownlee (2007), p.103
  11. ^ Baktiari (1996), pp.80-1.
  12. ^ Iran under the ayatollahs, by Dilip Hiro, p. 198
  13. ^ "Iran's ex-PM seen as candidate". FT. January 16, 2009.
  14. ^ "Mir-Hossein: Attempt to Exit 20-year long Isolation? (میر حسین موسوی؛ تلاش برای خروج از انزوای ۲۰ ساله؟)," (in Persian). BBC. 03 March 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  15. ^ Daragah, Borzou (2009-06-22). "Mir-Hossein Mousavi's unusual career arc". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-06-22. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ "تصویب قانون اساسی جمهوری اسلامی" (in Persian). IRNA news agency. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
  17. ^ "Moussavi officially joins presidential fray". PressTV. 2009-03-10. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
  18. ^ "Khatami will soon withdraw candidacy in favor of Mousavi: source". payvand. 2009-03-15. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
  19. ^ "Mousavi backs private TV, urges change recognition". PressTV. 2009-03-31. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
  20. ^ "Moussavi warns against governmental cover-up". PressTV. 2009-04-03. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
  21. ^ I speak for Mousavi. And Iran by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, The Guardian, June 19, 2009
  22. ^ "Iran Election In Dispute as 2 Candidates Claim Victory". Washington Post. 2009-06-13.
  23. ^ Arjang, Sohraab (August 2, 2009). "آیا آقای موسوی مردم را به دنبال سیاست خود می کشد، یامردم موسوی را". Fozoole Mahaleh. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
  24. ^ Etemad Melli Newspaper, no. 887, pp. 1–2, Saturday April 7, 2009 http://www.roozna.com {{citation}}: Check date values in: |year=, |date=, and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  25. ^ a b "The Answer To Ahmadinejad". Spiegel. 2009-04-27.
  26. ^ "Mousavi backs private TV, urges change recognition". PressTV. 31 March 2009.
  27. ^ "Mousavi: Moral police, provincial visits irrelevant". PressTV. April 09 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ a b c "Iran's Reform Candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Says Open to U.S. Negotiations". Fox News. April 06 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  29. ^ "Mousavi: Iran will never halt enrichment". PressTV.IR. 2009-04-14. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
  30. ^ "Iran candidate Mousavi backs women's rights". BBC News. May 31 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

References

Books


Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Foreign Affairs
1981 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Prime Minister of Iran
1981 – 1989 		Succeeded by
Position abolished
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