Algeria will head to the polls on Saturday, but to most observers it's already clear who will win the presidential election.

"There is no doubt that incumbent President Abdelmajid Tebboune is going to be reelected," Hafed Al-Ghwell, senior fellow at the Washington-based Johns Hopkins University, told DW.

Al-Ghwell sees two strong indicators suggesting Tebboune will win a second five-year-term.

Military power has been linked to Algerian politics for as long as most people can remember, he said. "And the military is still happy with him."

The second indicator is that there is no real opposition left. Amid a crackdown on the opposition and on dissent in general, only 16 of the initially 34 candidates submitted their documents. By now, only two of those 16 remain in the race to challenge Tebboune.

"By disqualifying many presidential candidates, the Algerian regime has ensured that incumbent President Tebboune will win the election," said Maria Josua, Algeria researcher at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies.

"However, it is astonishing that even people who are established as loyal opposition were excluded prior to the election," she said, explaining that previously, the ruling party in Algeria had won by........

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