Mohamed Brahmi

Mohamed Brahmi (; 15 May 1955 – 25 July 2013) was a Tunisian politician. Brahmi was the founder and former leader of the People's Movement, However, Brahmi and other members of the movement left the front on 7 July due to criticisms of the movements' central and regional leaders over cooperation with the front.

Brahmi was known for his socialist and Arab nationalist beliefs, He was a practicing Muslim. Although a member of the anti-Islamist Popular Front, he did not have a reputation for being especially critical of Islamists, and in fact had many friends in the ruling Islamist Ennahda Movement.

Assassination and funeral

On 25 July 2013, Brahmi was fatally shot in Tunis outside his Ariana home in front of his wife and children by two men on a motorcycle. He received 11 bullets and died later that day in a hospital in Ariana district of Tunis.

Brahmi's death followed the assassination of opposition leader Chokri Belaid, killed on 6 February 2013. The two were members of the same left-wing coalition. Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou told a news conference: "The same 9mm automatic weapon that killed Belaid also killed Brahmi." The suspect in both murders was identified as Abū Muqātil at-Tūnusī, a Salafist being sought on suspicion of smuggling weapons from Libya.

A state funeral was held for Brahmi and tens of thousands of people attended the procession to the Jellaz Cemetery in Tunis.

Protest Following his death, hundreds of his supporters, including relatives and party members of the People's Movement, demonstrated in front of the Interior Ministry's building on Avenue Habib Bourguiba and blamed the incumbent Ennahda Party and their followers for the assassination. Hundreds of supporters also protested in Brahmi's hometown of Sidi Bouzid. (later postponed for the end of 2014). In January 2014, however, Ennahda replaced Larayedh with a technocrat.

Legacy On 19 September 2013, Tunisia's interior minister told lawmakers the CIA informed authorities Brahmi was a target and said there had been a "failure" in the security services' response. He announced an investigation had been opened.

In the 2014 election, his wife Mbarka Aouinia Brahmi, heading the Popular Front's list in the Sidi Bouzid constituency, was elected a member of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People. On 4 December 2014, she was nominated for the post of the First deputy Speaker of the Assembly by the Popular Front, but was defeated with 33 votes against 157 votes for her contender Abdelfattah Mourou of Ennahda. Apart from the Popular Front (15 seats), only Afek Tounes (8 seats) had declared their support for her. She later claimed that Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda had had a pact to share the positions of president and vice-president of the Assembly, saying "the two parties of the political right, the one liberal and the other religious, joined hands under the table".