Kasdi Merbah

In office 5 November 1988 – 5 September 1989
President	Chadli Bendjedid
Preceded by	Abdelhamid Brahimi
Succeeded by	Mouloud Hamrouche
Personal details
Born	16 April 1938 Fès (Morocco)
Died	12 August 1993
Cause of death	Assassinated
Resting place	Algiers
Nationality	Algerian
Political party	National Liberation Front (Algeria)
Occupation	Former Prime Minister of Algeria
Religion	Islam
Military service
Battles/wars	Algerian War, Algerian Civil War

Kasdi Merbah (Arabic: قاصدي مرباح‎‎, 16 April 1938 – 21 August 1993) was an Algerian politician who served as Prime Minister between 5 November 1988 and 9 September 1989 when he was a member of the National Liberation Front. He was assassinated on August 21, 1993.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, he was the head of the Sécurité Militaire, the Algerian state intelligence service. Before the 1988 October Riots he had served as Minister of Agriculture and then Minister of Public Health, and the following month he was appointed Prime Minister. However, during his tenure he had an increasingly fractitious relationship with President Chadli Bendjedid, and was removed from office in September 1989.

Public criticism of Bendjedid led to him becoming isolated within the FLN, and in October 1990 he left the party to form the Algerian Movement for Justice and Development, known by its acronym "MAJD", meaning "glory" in Arabic. However, the party failed to win a seat in the 1991 parliamentary elections, the results of which were annulled after a military coup. Merbah appeared to be a very moderate politician and tried (secretly and overtly) to help in finding a solution for the Algerian Civil War that followed the coup. A great number of analysts attribute his assassination to his past in the security services and the many state secrets he possessed, beside the apparent moderate posture he had adopted with regard to dealing with the Islamist movements, particularly the FIS who went for the armed option.

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