Iranians have proven a willingness to pay a devastating value for political alternate, as protest has constantly been met through the Islamic Republic with violence and mass killing. The dying toll since Iranians took to the streets on December 28 has reportedly handed 500, with greater than 10,000 arrested. Incoming studies put the casualty depend a lot upper.
A transparent majority of Iranians don’t want the theocracy that got here to energy with the 1979 revolution. They would like a mundane democracy. However what does public opinion let us know about what that are meant to entail and the way this transformation must be completed?
Measuring public opinion in one of the most global’s maximum repressive international locations isn’t a very simple subject. Typical surveys performed via (landline) telephones or through face-to-face interviews have a tendency to replicate an implausibly homogeneous Islamic and pro-regime society. In contrast, Gamaan — the Staff for Analysing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran — conducts surveys anonymously during the web.
Our analysis is in line with consultant samples of anything else from tens of hundreds to over 100,000 respondents. In 2020 a Gamaan survey published a various, secularising and dissident society, by which round 70% rejected the obligatory hijab. Those numbers materialised within the streets in 2022, right through the “woman life freedom” protests (in finding out extra about pattern traits, weighting knowledge, and exterior benchmark checks at gamaan.org and this Wapor method webinar).
To reinforce randomisation, we collaborate with Psiphon VPN, which is extensively used throughout Iran. Through 2025, an estimated 90% of Iranian web customers trusted VPNs to get entry to blocked platforms, together with elementary messaging apps similar to Whatsapp.
This stage of protection enabled what we name VPN sampling, yielding huge, socially various samples below stipulations of protection and anonymity. Mixed with scale, anonymity provides dependable perception into what Iranians actually need. The newest survey at the 12-day warfare with Israel, taken in September 2025, secured greater than 30,000 responses from throughout the nation.
Why protests, once more? What’s other?
Our surveys constantly display that almost all stocks a consensus on what it does no longer need. Throughout provinces, rural and concrete spaces, age teams and gender, more or less 70–80% say they wouldn’t vote for the Islamic Republic.
In all survey waves, give a boost to for regime alternate as a precondition for significant development has been the preferred place. This give a boost to prior to now spiked right through the “woman life freedom” protests. We imagine we’re recently witnessing every other spike, given the rise noticed after the 12-day warfare.
Effects from GAMAAN’s surveys performed between 2021 and 2025.
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Against this with the context of earlier protests, the regime is militarily weakened from the 12-day warfare, right through which many senior commanders had been killed. Iran is now culturally weakened, now not ready to implement the obligatory hijab. It is usually economically weakened, with a plummeting foreign money.
Iranians imagine that protests, international power and intervention are much more likely to result in political alternate than elections and reforms. They had been thus emboldened when, for the primary time, a US president threatened intervention must protesters be killed. This got here days after the kidnapping through the USA army of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, a key best friend of the Islamic Republic.
Effects from GAMAAN’s 2025 survey at the 12-Day Battle.
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What may lie forward?
Protesters as of late separate the very concept of Iran from the Islamic Republic. They view the regime as an alien part, an occupying power. This has lengthy been expressed in slogans similar to “Our enemy is right here, they lie that it is America” and “Not Gaza, not Lebanon, I only give my life for Iran” (supported respectively through 73% and 64% once we examined them in 2021).
The recognition of Reza Pahlavi, the previous crown prince in exile who represents inherited monarchical nationalism, will also be understood in mild of this Iran-first mentality. Pahlavi’s social base remained strong in Gamaan’s surveys between 2022 and 2025. More or less one-third are robust supporters and every other 1/3 strongly oppose him. The remainder phase moderately concurs or disagrees, or expresses no opinion.
The present surge in pro-Pahlavi slogans means that his reputation is attracting segments of the latter average or not sure inhabitants. However our surveys discovered that his reputation is erratically disbursed. It’s decrease in provinces with upper ethnic minority populations, such because the Kurds, Azeri Turks and Baluch.
Effects from GAMAAN’s 2025 survey at the 12-day warfare.
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Despite the fact that there is not any consensus at the shape or construction of an alternate political machine, it’s noteworthy that during 2025 there used to be, for the primary time, a marked build up in give a boost to for monarchy. Given the numerous measurement of those that don’t voice a powerful opinion at the selection, any workforce that may effectively topple the Islamic Republic can have a bonus in convincing the bulk to undertake its proposed fashion.
Effects from GAMAAN’s 2025 survey at the 12-day warfare.
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Iranians overwhelmingly give a boost to a “democratic political system” – with 89% in favour. Improve for political liberalism, on the other hand, is weaker. In 2024, 43% agreed with having “a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”. This view is considerably upper amongst the ones with out upper training – amongst monarchists, it’s 49%.
Those details must no longer be lamented or mocked however understood, if the specter of a loss of liberalism is to be mitigated. Whilst nationalism would possibly generate the power of a innovative typhoon in a position to toppling the regime, long-term balance, after the autumn of the Islamic Republic, will even require an acceptance of Iran’s cultural and ideological variety as everlasting options of a really loose country.
