President's virus swagger fuels anger ahead of Belarus vote

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — As Kseniya Milya's grandfather lay dying of COVID-19 at a hospital in Belarus' capital of Minsk, the country's authoritarian leader was blithely dismissing the pandemic as “psychosis,” and recommending an unusual remedy: Have a regular shot of vodka and work hard in the fields.

Like many other Belarusians angry with the government's cavalier approach to the pandemic, Milya joined large opposition protests ahead of Sunday's presidential vote in which President Alexander Lukashenko is seeking a sixth term. The outpouring of public discontent poses the most serious challenge yet to Lukashenko after 26 years in office.

Milya said her 86-year-old grandfather, Ivan Shelesny, believed Lukashenko and took no precautions as the pandemic swept through the ex-Soviet nation.

"(He) trusted Lukashenko and TV, who said that COVID-19 doesn’t exist, and he died,” said Milya, a 26-year-old movie producer. “That was a result of the government’s policy.”

“He was attending veterans' meetings and visiting street markets,” she added. "And he was greatly surprised when he tested positive.”

Milya's grandfather died of coronavirus-induced pneumonia at a hospital in March, after a week on a ventilator.

“On the day they called me from intensive care to say that my granddad has died of confirmed COVID-19, I switched on the TV and saw the president saying that no one has died of the virus in Belarus,” Milya told The Associated Press.

It wasn't until April that the government reported the country's first COVID-19 deaths.

Milya and her family were all infected, and couldn't attend the funeral. Her 46-year-old father spent a month on a ventilator and barely survived, and her mother-in-law has remained in intensive care since April.

“The government...