The ruling Peoples’ Party of President Joyce Banda has suspended its outspoken deputy publicity secretary, Ken Msonda.

According to the acting party general secretary, Paul Maulidi, Msonda was suspended for insubordination and misconduct. This was after the party had asked him to retract his statement that the Peoples’ Party would go to war against the opposition DPP if the opposition was going to victimize the PP supporters.

Msonda’s remarks came soon after two houses belonging to the supporters of PP in Mulanje were gutted down by fire. Before any investigations were done, Msonda rushed to the media and attributed the fire to DPP and threatened vengeance to DPP supporters that would even be greater in proportion than they could imagine.

When he was asked by the party to apologize over his war remarks, Msonda was defiant and said that offering an apology would mean encouraging violence. To him, it was intelligent to meet fire with fire.

However, a report released by the police has as well attributed the fire to an accident and not arson as attributed to by Msonda who has been told to stop commenting on party issues until after getting the message from his seniors.

Msonda is not the first PP official to be put on a leash over careless remarks as its own ex general secretary, Henry Chibwana, was forced to step down for drumming up support for a one party state.