Bolivia: President Morales suspends election campaign to focus on Amazon wildfires

*NO CUTAWAYS AT SOURCE*
SOT, Evo Morales, Bolivian president (Spanish): "We are going to suspend the electoral campaign for at least one week. Evo and Alvaro [Bolivian president and his running mate] will suspend all electoral activities. We will all dedicate ourselves to taking care of the entire Chuiquitania [region affected by wildfires], the entire Bolivian Amazon. And I am asking municipal mayors, authorities, union leaders to give notice in advance. These fires will continue to appear. There has been more than two months without rain throughout the Amazon. And where there is drought there are fires."
SOT, Evo Morales, Bolivian president (Spanish): "I call on the countries that make up OTCA [Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation] to set up a meeting of foreign ministers or better yet presidents. Regardless of our differences of political and ideological nature, regardless of our cultural and social differences, Amazon comes first. Biodiversity comes first. Firstly, we have to take care of the ecological emergency. How good would it be to be able to plan a joint action because they are informing us that in the South American Amazon the fires are accelerating."
SOT, Evo Morales, Bolivian president (Spanish): "The CAF [Development Bank of Latin America], the executive director of the CAF, has donated to us about half a million dollars communicating that it is doing the corresponding management. There have been cases of cooperation, welcome cooperation, whether from international organisations or individuals who expressed their interest."
SCRIPT
Bolivian president Evo Morales announced the he is suspending his campaign for re-election to tackle the wildfires raging in the Bolivian Amazon at a news conference in Cochabamba on Sunday.
"We will all dedicate ourselves to taking care of the entire Chuiquitania [region affected by wildfires], the entire Bolivian Amazon. And I am asking municipal mayors, authorities, union leaders to give notice in advance. These fires will continue to appear. There has been more than two months without rain throughout the Amazon. And where there is drought there are fires," said Morales.
He also welcomed international aid and called for a meeting of regional leaders to discuss a joint strategy of battling the wildfires. A record number of fires have been raging through the Amazon rainforest most of which is located in Brazil but which also stretches into Bolivia and several other countries.