Socialist Michelle Bachelet promised to tackle inequality as she took the oath of office, returning to power after four years to lead Chile once more.

    MICHELLE BACHELET may be older and wiser than she was eight years ago when she first assumed Chile’s presidency, but chances are that leading her restive nation won’t be any easier this time around.

    The moderate socialist was inaugurated Tuesday as Senator Isabel Allende, daughter of the former President Salvador Allende, placed the presidential sash on her shoulder before Chile’s Congress in Valparaiso.

    Bachelet’s win followed a campaign of promises to finance education reform with higher corporate taxes, improve health care, change the dictatorship-era constitution to make Congress more representative and reduce the vast gap between rich and poor.

    “Chile has a single enemy and that is inequality and only together can we overcome it,” she said in a speech on the balcony of the presidential palace La Moneda on Tuesday evening, to cheering crowds waving Chilean flags.

    “On the day I leave this house I want you all to feel that your life has changed for the better, that Chile is not just a list of indicators or statistics but a better country to live in.”

    Some think she raised expectations too high.

    Those indicators and statistics are not looking great. Economic activity growth slowed to a near four-year low in January, the peso has slid over 8 percent in the year to date and the crucial copper price is at its weakest since 2010.

    “She promised a lot of things, a lot of reforms, so people expect many things to happen,” said Patricio Navia, a Chilean political scientist at New York University.

    “But the economic conditions have changed,” he added. “The economy is not growing quite as fast and Bachelet is not going to have the leverage to introduce all the reforms.”

    In Congress, she has the majority needed to approve the tax reform, but still must form alliances with the opposition and independents to pass the educational reform and to rewrite the constitution.

    Analysts believe she can easily find the votes for education reform, but say overcoming hurdles to changing the constitution will be much tougher.

    Internally, Bachelet also must deal with political differences that are already evident in the broad coalition of Christian Democrats, Socialists and Communists who support her.

    The crisis in Venezuela has already confronted her with divisions between Christian Democrats, who want to censure the Nicolas Maduro government, and the communists, who support him.

    Bachelet is inheriting an economy that is losing steam after some five years at a 5 percent growth rate. Growth this year is forecast at between 3.75 and 4.75 percent.

    One of her first challenges, therefore, will be to dampen the soaring expectations for quick changes, with Asian demands for Chile’s copper on the wane.

    During her first presidency in 2006-2010, Bachelet won praise for shepherding Chile through the global economic crisis. Although growth stumbled and unemployment rose, she used government reserves to help the poorest Chileans, and she enjoyed 84 percent approval when she left office.

    The student protests that bedeviled outgoing President Sebastian Pinera began under Bachelet. She named a commission and shuffled her Cabinet, which seemed enough when the student groups were still strongly influenced by the ruling center-left coalition.

    Those bonds broke under Pinera, when Communist Party members such as Camila Vallejo led the students. Vallejo is now a member of Congress and a Bachelet ally, but the key university student unions are led by anarchists who vow to make life impossible for Bachelet if she doesn’t follow through.

    “The urgency of the educational crisis that we’re living doesn’t allow us to give her a honeymoon,” said Naschla Aburman, president of the Catholic University student federation.

    Chile is the world’s top copper exporter, and its fast-growing economy, low unemployment and inflation have been the envy of Latin America. But many Chileans say more of its wealth should be used to help reduce income inequality and make quality education accessible to everyone.

    Many blame the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Salvador Allende, for concentrating wealth and power. Pinochet privatized water resources and ended agrarian reforms. He also eliminated central control and funding of public schools.

    Bachelet became Chile’s first female defense minister and president, then the first leader of the U.N. women’s agency.

    Her “New Majority” coalition welcomed Communists, street activists and former student leaders, and won in December by the widest margin in eight decades of presidential elections.

    Chile’s economy thrived under Pinera, but metals prices have dropped and growth has slowed just as Bachelet hopes to take in about US$8.2 billion in taxes from businesses to fund her education reform.

    Pinera was praised for reconstruction efforts after a magnitude-8.8 earthquake devastated part of the country days before he took office, and his management of the rescue of 33 trapped miners brought him global fame.

    His popularity plunged amid clashes between police and protesters, but bounced back after he took strong positions against dictatorship-era abuses.

    The billionaire former airline executive plans another shot at the presidency in four years.

    Meanwhile, unrest in Venezuela cast a shadow across Chile’s inauguration.

    Venezuelan President Maduro canceled plans to go to the swearing-in after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who attended, called the street protests in Venezuela “alarming” and said democratically elected leaders who rule as authoritarians damage their people and countries. Maduro sent his foreign minister Elias Jaua to Chile in his stead.

    Bachelet has tried to straddle the divide.

    “We are always going to try to find ways of assuring that human rights are truly guaranteed. Neither does it seem proper to take violent actions seeking to destabilize a democratically elected government,” she said in a television interview with Chile’s Channel 13.

    As Chile’s first female leader, Bachelet left office with high approval ratings.

    Barred by the constitution from running for immediate re-election, Bachelet, a pediatrician by training, led the United Nations gender equality body U.N. Women after her first term ended.

    Bachelet easily won the 2013 election as the head of the Nueva Mayoria coalition, a bloc that ranges from moderate leftists to communists. Although praised for its handling of the economy, the 2010-2014 conservative administration of Pinera was criticized for failing to deal with social inequality.

    During the Pinochet dictatorship, Bachelet was a victim of torture and spent some time in exile.

    Both her parents were also tortured and her father, an air force general who remained loyal to deposed leader Allende, died in prison.

    Bachelet is the second child of archaeologist Angela Jeria Gomez and Air Force Brigadier General Alberto Bachelet Martinez. She is a divorced mother of three.

    (SD-Agencies)