Michelle Bachelet took over the presidency of Chile in a ceremony loaded with symbolism on Tuesday, promising to stick to her tax-and-spend campaign pledges to fight social inequality despite a sharp economic slowdown.
Bachelet accepted the presidential sash from Senate head Isabel Allende, the daughter of late socialist President Salvador Allende, whose overthrow in 1973 ushered in the 17-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Returning to the job she held between 2006 and 2010, Bachelet, 62, heads a coalition that ranges from moderate leftists to communists. She wants to use tax reforms to overhaul education and health care.
"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. - Reuters