The Lesotho Parliament Building

Abstract This chapter traces the story of how the Lesotho building project was carried out and discusses the extent to which the finished product met the needs and interests of the Parliament of Lesotho. Of the three case studies, the Lesotho Parliament building was the first to be constructed. Therefore, it offers an ideal starting point for tracing the phenomenon of Chinese government-funded and constructed African parliament buildings over time. The chapter illustrates how the China-led design and construction process largely disregarded Lesotho’s established public construction procedures and marginalized the involvement of local architects, regulators, contractors, and artisans. The central argument of the chapter is that China’s chosen approach of controlling the design, construction, and maintenance of the Parliament building has enabled it to have a long-term presence in Lesotho’s parliamentary built space and, by extension, in the Lesotho domestic political ecosystem.