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,

If you need one word to describe Venezuela these days, it would be fearful.” That’s what one Latin American diplomat told CNN this week, reflecting on the strange atmosphere in the country.

Days before Venezuela’s presidential inauguration, self-exiled Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González was in Panama Wednesday rallying regional support for the opposition's claims that he won the July election against President Nicolás Maduro.