Populism is rife in various African countries. This political ideology responds to and takes advantage of a situation where a large section of people feels exploited, marginalised or disempowered. It sets up “the people” against “the other”. It promises solidarity with the excluded by addressing their grievances. Populism targets broad social groups, operating across ethnicity and class.
But how does populism fare when it informs state interventions to address long-standing societal issues under capitalism? Do populist state measures – especially when launched by a politically powerful leader – deliver improvements for the stated beneficiaries?
As academics who have researched populism for years, we were interested in the implementation and outcomes of such policies and programmes. To answer these questions, we analysed a populist intervention by President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda to address rampant land conflicts. In 2013 he set out to halt land evictions.
What good came of this? Did it help the poor?
We analysed land laws, court cases, government statements and media reports and found that, for the most part, the intervention offered short-term relief. Some people returned to the land, but the underlying land conflict was unresolved.
This created problems that continue to be felt today, including land disputes and land tenure insecurity. The intervention also increased the involvement of the president and his agents personally in providing justice.
It didn’t make pro-poor structural changes to address the root of the problem.
Yet, the intervention had several political benefits:
it enhanced the political legitimacy of the president and state
it offered a politically useful response to a land-related crisis and conflict
it addressed broader criticisms over injustice and poverty by sections of the public and opposition leaders, some of whom (like Robert Kyagulanyi) also relied on populist rhetoric.
The promise to deal with land evictions “once and for all” has yet to be realised over a decade later. During Heroes Day celebrations on 9 June 2024, Museveni’s speech repeated his promise to stop evictions.
Such promises of getting a grip on and ending evictions via decisive state actions, including proposed new legal guidelines, were also made more recently, for example during Heroes Day 2025. This indicates that evictions – and state responses to them – remain a top issue on the political agenda ahead of Uganda’s 2026 election.
Persistent evictions
Evictions were rampant in the 2010s, especially in central Uganda’s Buganda region. They were driven by increased demand for land amid a growing population and legal reforms that seemed to protect tenants over landlords. Some landlords, desperate to free their land of tenants, were carrying out the evictions themselves.
The president condemned the evictions, but they continued. Soon, the number of evictees was in the thousands.
In response, Museveni set up a land committee within the presidency. He announced at a press conference in early 2013 that:
all evictions are halted. There will be no more evictions, especially in the rural areas. All evictions involving peasants are halted.
The dynamics of populism-in-practice
Museveni’s attempts to personally deal with evictions illustrate a continued power shift in Uganda, from institutions to the president’s executive units.
Despite its shortcomings, such as case backlogs, the judicial system offers an opportunity to present cases in a more neutral environment. It also allows parties to appeal decisions. This way, higher courts can correct errors where necessary.
The presidential land committee, we found, tended to be biased in favour of tenants, paying less attention to the landlords’ cases.
The president’s intervention wasn’t adequate to address the immediate causes and effects of the evictions, nor the root causes.
Those included land tenure insecurities. Due to legal reforms, land-rich landlords were unable to get rent at market value from tenants. Neither could they evict them lawfully where rent was in arrears.
In some cases, legal options such as land sales between landlords and tenants were applied. This was often to the detriment of tenants, especially where there was no neutral actor to oversee negotiations.
Land reforms need to be institutionalised and funded to deliver the intended outcomes. Otherwise, unlawful sales and evictions become a quick option for landlords.
Museveni’s populist initiative also unleashed new problems for beneficiaries. Some secured land occupancy in the interim but lived in fear of a relapse of conflict. Mistrust and scarred interpersonal relationships hampered cohesion in some communities. Disputes over land put political actors who would ideally be working together to restore calm at loggerheads.
Populism as power
The creation of populist presidential units has become routine in Uganda. More recently, Museveni created a unit to protect investors, which has resolved some investment-related land disputes. Another one was established to fight corruption. Both units remain very active.
Our research finds that the government needs these units and interventions for a number of reasons. It uses them to govern the country’s conflict-ridden economy and society. They allow the government to assemble a politically useful response to crises and to address some on-the-ground problems. They make the state look concerned and responsive to people’s needs. And they allow ruling party political actors to increase their popularity locally.
Museveni and his ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, therefore, benefit from a key aspect of populism. It allows the merging of disparate, competing and contradictory views, interests and demands of members of various societal classes and groups into a significantly simplified and uniform narrative that (potentially) speaks to all. This could mean: end corruption, end evictions, wealth for all, and so on.
A general election is due in early 2026. The steps Museveni has taken on evictions, and the units set up to fight corruption or protect investors, need to be seen with this political context in mind.
Museveni has put protecting people from evictions high on his government’s agenda. Speaking to party members in August 2024, he emphasised
the importance of adhering to the mass line, which prioritises the needs and rights of the masses over those of the elite.
In our view, this pre-election narrative signifies the continued political and social relevance of populism in today’s Uganda. This could result in heightened populist state activity in the run-up to and after the election.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
By Rose Nakayi, Senior Lecturer of Law, Makerere University And
Jörg Wiegratz, Associate Professor of Global Political Economy and Development, University of Leeds
