By Vivian Sequera and Mircely Guanipa CARACAS/MARACAY (Reuters) -Venezuelan opposition parties and their supporters - including leader Maria Corina Machado, who had been in hiding - protested around the country on Thursday in an eleventh-hour effort to put pressure on President Nicolas Maduro,

Edmundo González has become a beacon of hope for millions of Venezuelans. They want to call him president. He believes he won that office at the ballot box last year.

Venezuela is bracing for heightened political tension as opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez has pledged to return to the country just before President Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration on Friday