Perhaps the most striking finding involved public support for Iran’s current political system.
The leaked report reportedly found that only 9% of respondents favored keeping the country’s existing system unchanged. Meanwhile, 53% supported major structural reforms, while another 19% said they preferred replacing the political system altogether.
If accurate, those numbers indicate that nearly three out of every four respondents want sweeping political changes rather than preserving the current government.
The findings are likely to fuel renewed debate over whether Iran’s challenges extend far beyond economic hardship and reflect a much broader crisis of legitimacy facing the ruling regime.
Miad Maleki, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argued the report may actually understate the depth of dissatisfaction among ordinary Iranians.
“If anything, this research understates the depth of Iranians’ rage,” Maleki told Fox News Digital. “And that is what makes it remarkable: even a survey prepared for the regime’s own president, by its own pollsters, records anger levels above 63%, well beyond the highest rate Gallup has ever recorded anywhere in the world, alongside 81% struggling to put food on the table and a majority expressing hopelessness.”
Maleki also cautioned that polling conducted under an authoritarian government presents obvious challenges because many people fear speaking honestly.
“In a police state where expressing the wrong opinion can cost you your job, your freedom, or your life, respondents self-censor, which means these findings are best read as a floor, not a ceiling,” he said.
Although the reported findings have attracted significant attention, several important details remain unknown.
IranWire reported that the leaked material did not include information explaining how the survey was conducted. The report reportedly omitted details about participant selection, sampling methods, geographic distribution, and whether the respondents accurately represented Iran’s broader population.
Without that information, outside analysts cannot independently verify the results or determine how accurately the survey reflects national public opinion.
Likewise, widespread dissatisfaction alone does not necessarily mean organized political change is imminent.
Even with those limitations, the reported data suggests many Iranians are struggling emotionally as well as financially.
According to IranWire, approximately 64% of respondents reported persistent anger—an increase of roughly 12 percentage points compared to a previous government survey conducted in late 2025.
The report also found that half of respondents described themselves as feeling hopeless. Nearly 48% reported sadness or depression, while about 45% said they regularly experienced fear or anxiety.
Taken together, the findings portray a population facing mounting pressure from multiple directions.
The reported economic figures were equally troubling.
More than 81% of respondents said they experienced either severe or partial difficulty obtaining enough food. Another 75% reportedly struggled to afford medical treatment.
More than half indicated their household income failed to cover everyday living expenses, while only 8% said they earned enough money to put aside savings.
When respondents were asked what they believed was driving the country’s economic problems, many focused primarily on domestic leadership.
According to the report, 47% blamed government inefficiency, 26.3% pointed to corruption, and 20.7% cited international sanctions.
Those results suggest that many Iranians place greater responsibility on their own government than on foreign economic pressure.
The report also described declining confidence in key state institutions.
Roughly 60% of respondents reportedly expressed little or no trust in major government organizations. More than 61% gave officials poor marks for their ability to address Iran’s growing challenges.
Distrust reportedly extended across several pillars of the government, including parliament, the judiciary, executive leadership, and state-run television.
Despite those findings, IranWire reported that Rabiei’s recommendations focused primarily on improving public messaging rather than pursuing major political reforms.
Among the reported suggestions were better explaining the impact of sanctions, softening official rhetoric, presenting a more inclusive image through state television, and avoiding policies that unnecessarily place the government in conflict with its own citizens.
IranWire argued that the recommendations appeared to treat public dissatisfaction largely as a communications problem instead of addressing deeper political or economic grievances.
Maleki said the survey mirrors the expanding wave of anti-government demonstrations seen across Iran in recent years.
“Iranians have moved from being skeptical of what another revolution might bring to concluding there is no alternative to one, because reform has proven impossible,” Maleki said.
Even so, he acknowledged that public frustration alone does not determine political outcomes.
Iran’s ruling establishment has spent decades developing an extensive security apparatus designed to identify, monitor, and suppress organized opposition before it can threaten the regime.
As Maleki noted:
“This regime was born of revolution, by revolutionaries. Preventing and crushing the next one is the one thing they genuinely know how to do.”
Whether the reported findings ultimately signal the beginning of a larger political transformation remains uncertain. But if the leaked report accurately reflects internal government assessments, Iran’s leaders appear to recognize that public dissatisfaction has reached levels that are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
