The priority for my government is that there will be development for everyone, equally.

As a doctor, when I was minister of health and would go somewhere, little girls would come up to me and say, 'I want to be like you one day, I want to be a doctor.' Now, they tell me, 'I want to be president just like you.' All of us can dream as big as we want.

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.

Chile has done a lot to rid itself of poverty, especially extreme poverty, since the return to democracy. But we still have a ways to go toward greater equity. This country does not have a neoliberal economic model anymore. We have put in place a lot of policies that will ensure that economic growth goes hand in hand with social justice.

In any area of the UN we ... have to agree on certain language that can represent the same spirit, but that can be accepted by everyone.

Women say that my election represents a cultural break with the past - a past of sexism, of misogyny.

Violence against women in all its forms is a human rights violation. It's not something that any culture, religion or tradition propagates.