He lost the election, receiving 3,884,412 votes and ranking fourth behind winner Hassan Rouhani, runner-up Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Saeed Jalili.

On 23 April 2009, he announced that he had entered the 2009 presidential race, after trying to find another conservative to run against President Ahmadinejad; he lost.

Rezaee was a military commander during Iran–Iraq War and also became chief of Sepah (Iran's second army) after the assassination of Mostafa Chamran.

He also had packages for resolving problems in foreign affairs relations and for the nuclear program of Iran.

After the nomination of other conservative candidates like Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and Saeed Jalili, Rezaee's chance became lower.