Financial Review - 30 January 2026 For decades, few Iranians took the exiled crown prince seriously. Now, he’s the focal point of a would-be revolution. This is how things changed. For almost 40 years after Prince Reza Pahlavi left Iran with the royal family in 1979 at the age of 17, few inside Iran saw him as a leader of the millions of Iranians seeking an end to the Islamic Republic. Yet the actions of the last month show that has changed. The massive public response to his first call for nationwide protests, accompanied by chants such as “This is the final battle – Pahlavi will return,” was met with one of the bloodiest street crackdowns in Iran’s contemporary history on the nights of January 8 and 9. Under conditions of severe censorship, it is impossible to know exactly how many people died on those bloody nights. However, the testimony of doctors, human rights activists, civil society organisations and some officials inside the country, backed up by the growing number of videos, photos and eyewitness reports emerging, suggest more than 30,000 people were killed. Whatever the number, it represents a crime against humanity. Iranian society has entered a new phase of confrontation with the regime – one in which Reza Pahlavi’s name has become a focal point of political convergence. Even in Australia, where just three years ago the pro-monarchy and Women, Life, Freedom movement supporters demonstrated separately, the backing for Pahlavi could be seen when about 20,000 people chanted his name during protests in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. And as US President Donald Trump threatens to use his “armada” against the regime and questions turn to what could replace the Islamic Republic, Pahlavi is the only opposition leader on the board. Why has the Pahlavi name returned to the streets? The reappearance of the Pahlavi name in protest slogans has been gradual. During the 2018 protests, chants such as “Reza Shah, may your soul rest in peace” were heard for the first time, intoning the name of the modernising king who ruled Iran from 1923 to 1944. Just two weeks later, the discovery of a mummified body at the Shah Abdol-Azim shrine – widely believed to be that of Reza Shah – further intensified public attention. At the same time, domestic media, albeit heavily censored, were forced to mention the Pahlavi name again in headlines. These events were not merely expressions of historical nostalgia. Notwithstanding that by the late 1970s, not everyone was happy with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s rule, the intervening 47 years have been more than enough to compare it with the Islamic Republic of the ayatollahs. Many Iranians have come to a stark conclusion: that an increasingly closed and ruthless regime, intolerant of even the smallest degree of cultural or lifestyle diversity, has not only stalled development but also actively dismantled the country’s economic, cultural, and institutional foundations. Why did he become a unifying figure? Today, many protesters view Reza Pahlavi as a secular, nationalist figure who supports human rights and normal relations with the world – precisely the demands at the core of the current protest movement. He has repeatedly stated that he does not seek to restore the monarchy and that he sees his role as limited to a “transitional period”: facilitating the end of the Islamic Republic, overseeing a referendum, and leaving the choice of future political system to the people. Political analysts argue that mass participation in his calls for protest does not necessarily indicate widespread support for the monarchy. Many participants may favour a republican system or a parliamentary monarchy. However, in the current crisis, Pahlavi is widely seen as the only popular, non-ideological national figure capable of representing a transition process. This unifying role has also neutralised one of the regime’s most persistent propaganda tools: fear of Iran’s territorial fragmentation after the fall of the government. Support for Pahlavi across diverse ethnic regions – from Kurdistan to Khuzestan and Azerbaijan – suggests that the threat of disintegration has been used more as a survival tactic by the regime than as a realistic political outcome. Why the alternatives lack social support The experience of the 1979 revolution has severely damaged the credibility of both Islamist and leftist movements among large segments of society. Many Iranians now view their alliance at the time as the root cause of the current disaster. Today’s left-wing groups lack unified leadership and coherent political, cultural, or economic programs for a secular state and open economy. Organisations such as the Mojahedin-e Khalq, a Marxist-Islamist organisation which has for decades been based outside Iran and held up by some in the West as the main opposition group, have virtually no credibility or social base inside Iran due to their collaboration with Saddam Hussein and their cult-like internal structures. By contrast, public demands have become increasingly clear: a secular state, human rights, non-ideological economic and cultural policies, preservation of territorial integrity, and a return to national – rather than religious – identity. These demands are neither leftist nor religious; they reflect a form of modern nationalism grounded in Iran’s historical and cultural continuity and in peaceful relations with neighbouring countries. Why nostalgia has turned into political demand. In this context, rallying around Reza Pahlavi does not signal a desire to return to the past, but rather an expression of hope for the future – and for the continuation of the social and economic trajectory that his grandfather and father began, but with a stronger and more representative political class. For many protesters, he represents not a restoration of the old order, but the possibility of completing an unfinished transition toward a modern, secular state. Although support for a parliamentary monarchy appears to be growing, Pahlavi has consistently stated that the final decision about Iran’s political system must rest with the people, through a free and transparent referendum. For many, he is not necessarily the future king, but an umbrella under which society has once again found direction, momentum, and unity. In a political environment where the regime relies on repression and division, that unity may well be the most valuable asset of Iran’s current protest movement. Shokoofeh Azar is an Iranian-Australian journalist and author, whose work has been nominated for the International Booker Prize and the Stella Prize.