VARIOUS/FILE: POLITICS - Profile of Iran's former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi who stands as President Ahmadinejad's main threat in Friday's poll

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12 June 2009

Shotlist Ref: RTV1081709

VARIOUS/FILE: POLITICS - Profile of Iran's former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi who stands as President Ahmadinejad's main threat in Friday's poll

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Mirhossein Mousavi, seen as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's main challenger in Iran's June 12 election, advocates better ties with Iran's Western foes while rejecting their main demand - a halt to sensitive nuclear work.
Hoping to win votes from reformers and conservatives, the former prime minister derides Ahmadinejad's "charity economy" policies, while urging a return to the "fundamental values" of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The bespectacled, bearded 67-year-old enjoys the support of reformist former President Mohammad Khatami and backing from Khatami's pragmatic predecessor, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani.
After two decades out of the political limelight, Mousavi, running partly on that economic record, says he would seek detente with the West, curb inflation and create jobs if elected president of the world's fifth-largest oil producer.
He has promised to change the "extremist" image that Iran earned abroad under Ahmadinejad and has hit out at his profligate spending of petrodollars and cash handouts to the poor, which he says have stoked rising consumer prices.
But Mousavi, the son of a tea merchant, is also trying to carve inroads into Ahmadinejad's conservative support base, speaking of the need for "justice and freedom" while campaigning in the birthplace of Khomeini, Iran's late revolutionary leader.
Ahmadinejad won the 2005 election pledging to revive the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution and promising to share Iran's oil wealth more fairly among ordinary people.
Like Ahmadinejad, Mousavi says Iran will not halt its nuclear programme, but suggests he would do more to assure the West that it is for electricity generation - not bomb-making.
Breaking new ground in Iranian politics, Mousavi's wife Zahra Rahnavard is actively campaigning for him. The couple even hold hands at rallies, rare public behaviour for politicians in the mainly Shi'ite and socially conservative state.
A prominent artist and academic in her own right, Rahnavard may help her architect and painter husband draw women voters.
But his strategy of trying to appeal to voters across the political spectrum risks alienating some reformers seeking a more radical break with the Ahmadinejad era.
His relationship with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a topic of speculation. The two men, who are distant relatives, had differences in the 1980s when Khamenei was president. Khamenei called on voters this month to back an anti-Western candidate.
Mousavi, who favoured a big role for the state in Iran's war-time economy, now advocates economic liberalisation. He says he would control inflation through monetary policies and would also make life easier for private business.
Mousavi was prime minister when Iran and Iraq went to war in 1980. The conflict erupted after Iraq tore up an agreement with Iran over the sovereignty of the Shatt al-Arab waterway.
The war dragged on for eight years before both sides backed a United Nations ceasefire plan. close

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TEHRAN, IRAN (RECENT) (REUTERS)

IRANIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MIRHOSSEIN MOUSAVI SEATED WITH: (LEFT TO RIGHT) VICE PRESIDENT PARVIZ DAVOODI, PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, GUARDIAN COUNCIL HEAD ...
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TEHRAN, IRAN (RECENT) (REUTERS)

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TEHRAN, IRAN (FILE - APRIL 1982) (REUTERS)

TROOPS MARCH IN PARADE CARRYING BANNERS AS CROWDS CHEER
FLAG SHOWING CARTOON OF STATUE OF LIBERTY
PORTRAITS OF AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI
TUMULTUOUS CROWDS ...
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VARIOUS/FILE: POLITICS - Profile of Iran's former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi who stands as President Ahmadinejad's main threat in Friday's poll

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