The old Parliament Building in the centre of Zomba is a low, single-storey colonial building in red brick with a wide veranda — the seat of Malawi's national legislature from independence in 1964 until the move to Lilongwe in 1994. It is modest by parliamentary standards, but the modesty is part of the story: a small newly independent country making do with the buildings it had inherited.
The building now houses university offices and is not formally open to visitors, but the surrounding grounds and the exterior repay a quick look. The old Cabinet Room (where Hastings Banda presided for thirty years) is occasionally opened for special events. The setting, in the heart of the colonial quarter, is the best surviving example of what Zomba felt like as a capital.