Now that actor Jamie Foxx is BFFs with Venezuelan tyrant Nicolas Maduro, perhaps he can ask his new buddy about this development. Amidst all of the unrest and food riots taking place there, voters were scheduled to go to the polls in December for state elections of Governors and representatives. (The presidential election doesn’t take place until later.) Unfortunately for the people who may be unhappy with the current management as they scramble for loafs of bread or get arrested for standing in line at a grocery store, it looks like those elections will just have to wait. (Fox News)

The Venezuelan Constitution mandates governors to be elected every four years, but this year’s election may have to wait — and wait. The National Electoral Council is not saying a word about it, but the clock keeps ticking and the mid-December vote has not even been scheduled. When confronted by the media, electoral officials skip the question or matter-of-factly explain that they are busy dealing with the presidential recall vote requested by the opposition. “We don’t have a date. We are committed to collecting the expressions of the people’s will,” said council member Socorro Hernández, referring to the collection of signatures needed to start the referendum process — a convoluted process that, according to the opposition, is being manipulated by the Electoral Council known as CNE.

If this scene is looking tragically familiar to you it’s not a case of your imagination running wild. When tyrants get into trouble with their own people, freedoms begin to disappear quickly and the right to vote for elected leaders is sure to be one of the early victims. In theory, Venezuelans are constitutionally assured regional elections quadrennially, but as the saying goes, those assurances are only worth as much as the paper they’re printed on. The people also supposedly have the right to vote to recall the president… a process which is is already in high demand. But to the surprise of nobody, Maduro’s people on the CNE have set such a high bar to establish the recall election that it may prove impossible for the voters to meet it. (Wall Street Journal)

Venezuela’s national electoral council has scheduled a decisive phase in the referendum process against embattled President Nicolás Maduro with conditions that make it highly unlikely his opponents will be able to change the government. The opposition alliance has called the conditions “unconstitutional” but stopped short of boycotting the referendum.

In short, Maduro is saying that the people can schedule a recall election, but in order to make it happen they will need to collect the signatures of 20% of the eligible voters in every state and they’ll only have 72 hours to do it. Given the logistics involved in deploying the resources to manage the feat in some of the more remote parts of the country that may not even be possible.

Take a good look, folks, and remind all of these American celebrities who want to “support the socialist revolution” in Venezuela and prop up Maduro. This is what socialism looks like and this is how socialism always ends. Maduro is a tyrant like all those who came before him. The trappings of a democratic process are just window dressing to make things look better and the people of his country have no significant rights or voice in the running of the country. Maduro’s people are starving and he’s shutting down the democratic process before our eyes. And we’ve yet to hear a peep out of Washington about it.