Zimbabwean police on Saturday fired teargas at an opposition party gathering in Harare and arrested 25 of its members, including two members of parliament, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) said.

The arrests came after a wave of politically motivated violence against opposition supporters in rural Zimbabwe, raising fears of repression ahead of the presidential election this year which the date has not yet been announced.

According to CCC, the private internal strategy meeting was held at the private residence of one of the members in Budiriro township, about 15 kilometres from central Harare.

It wasn’t open to the public at all. The Maintenance of Peace and Order Act only applies to public meetings in a public place,” CCC spokeswoman Fadzayi Mahere told Reuters. Police allegedly fired teargas at the gathering, and beat up several opposition members before they were bundled into a police truck, she added.

Zimbabwean law requires political parties to notify authorities two weeks before holding a political meeting. CCC, led by the youthful Nelson Chamisa, will battle ZANU-PF’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa for the second time after he narrowly lost the 2018 vote.

The opposition party, born out of the old Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), enjoys massive urban support and is seen as a threat to ZANU-PF’s 43-year-old stranglehold on power.