Today it is time to give the government a new lease of life and this new phase which is as demanding as it is inspiring requires renovated energy and new faces.

I made an effort to ensure social safeguards. But our economy has to grow - and Chile, with a population of 17 million, cannot depend entirely on its domestic market. Which is why the decision to focus on exports, made at the beginning of the democratic era, was the correct one. We are continuing to do so. For a long time, Chile has been successful in combating poverty. But now we must focus more on fighting inequality.

The respect for human rights is nowadays not so much a matter of having international standards, but rather questions of compliance with those standards.

My message to women is: Women: We can do it. We are capable of doing almost anything, but we must learn we cannot do it all at once, we need to prioritize.

As women politicians, we talk about the most difficult themes of state security, foreign relations and development models, then ask, 'How do you make it work with your husband?' The interesting thing is that these women - most of them - don't lose the perspective that the focus is not the position but the job at hand.

Chile needs to unite behind the goals of reducing poverty and creating more equal opportunities so that everyone can benefit from what the country has to offer.

Educational equality doesn't guarantee equality on the labor market. Even the most developed countries are not gender-equal. There are still glass ceilings and 'leaky pipelines' that prevent women from getting ahead in the workplace.