Mousavi Mir Hossein, born on 2nd March 1942 is an Iranian politician, painter, architect who served as the fifth and last Prime Minister of Iran from 1981 to 1989. He was the last prime minister in Iran before the constitutional changes which removed the post of prime minister. Before that, he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He is currently the president of Iranian Academy of Arts. He is also a member of the Expediency Discernment Council and the High Council of Cultural Revolution, but he has not been participating in their meetings for a long time which is interpreted by political analysts and commentators as a sign of his disapproval. Mousavi holds a Masters degree in Architecture from Shahid Beheshti University (melli). In the early years of the revolution, Mousavi was the editor-in-chief of the official newspaper of the Islamic Republic Party, the Jomhouri-e Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi is well-remembered, incredibly respected and praised by many Iranians across the political spectrum for his handling of Iran’s economy and protecting the country whilst at war with Iraq during his premiership. His strong commitment to Social Justice and Equality is well-known and is regarded to be at the core of his political ideology, which influenced policy-Making during his premiership. He pioneered the Coupon/vouchers-based economy during his premiership which resulted in a fair distribution of goods among people at the very crucial time of the war with Iraq. The economy was weakening day by day due to international sanctions by western powers who all backed Iraq during the war and demeed Iran as a threat towards regional hegemony.
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 won in a landslide. One of the memorable tactics of the 1997 Presidential Election Campaign was the posters containing Khatami’s picture alongside Mousavi and his support for Khatami’s bid, which is regarded by commentators to be the cause of the enormous support among working class Iranians that Khatami enjoyed. Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, explained in an interview that the reason for him not running in the 1997 elections was discouraging messages from higher officials, a statement which possibly hints at the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and/or the then President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
During Khatami’s administration, he served as the Senior Adviser to the President. He was considered as the possible leading candidate of the reformist alliance to run in the Iranian presidential election, 2005. But he finally declined the offer of certain parties in the reformist alliance on October 12, 2004, after a meeting with President Mohammad Khatami and the two other major members of the moderate Association of Combatant Clerics, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Mousavi-Khoiniha.
After 20 years of political silence, on March 9, 2009 he announced his bid to run in the 2009 Iranian Presidential Election, which has been since welcomed by many Iranians who still recall his time as Prime Minister. His intention to contest the upcoming Presidential election in June has been immensely welcomed by Trade Unions, Labour associations, grassroot activists on both sides of the political aisle and working class Iranians who feel being neglected for far too long by different administrations. Mousavi is well remembered by many Iranians for managing the country during the 1980-88 war with Iraq, and very effectively steering the country out of an economic meltdown. He has stated that his main goals are to institutionalise social justice, equality and fairness, freedom of expression, rooting out corruption as well as to speed up Iran’s pending process of privatization and thus move Iran away from what he calls “an alms-based economy”. Presidential hopeful Mousavi poses a serious pro-reform challenge to the country’s hard-line establishment and the current ultra-conservative president Ahmadinejad and has often criticized his economic mismanagement, stating that when Iran “was making profits from high oil prices, had he (Ahmadinejad) ever considered a situation when prices would fall?”.
Mousavi’s candidacy as a strong opportunity to unseat the current hard-line President Ahmadinejad, as he has lost popularity even among conservatives because of his handling of the faltering economy, evaporation of civil liberties and the disastrous state of the foreign policy, as some Iranians believe that his tough anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli rhetoric has worsened Iran’s isolation and standing in the world.
POLITICAL POSTS
- Member of Central Campaign of Islamic Republican Party (1979–1981)
- Head of Political Office of Islamic Republican Party (1980–1981)
- Editor-in-Chief of Islamic Republican Newspaper (1981)
- Minister of Foreign Affairs (1981)
- President of Council of Cultural Revolution (1981)
- Prime Minister of Iran (1981–1989)
- President of Mostazafen Foundation of Islamic Revolution (1981–1989)
- President of Economy Council (1982–1989)
- Political adviser of president Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989–1997)
- Senior adviser of president Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005)
- Member of Expediency Discernment Council (1989-Present)
- Member of Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (1996-Present)
- President of Iranian Academy of Arts (2000–2009)
- Leader of Green Movement and The Green Path of Hope (2009-Present)
Checkout the ASCII Art of Mousavi Mir Hossein in the below link. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.
http://www.4shared.com/document/oSE4A8Xb/Mousavi_Mir_Hossein.html
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