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 takes office Tuesday promising 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.
Some think that may have raised expectations too far.
“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.”
During her first presidency in 2006-10, Ms 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 during hard times, and she enjoyed 84 percent approval when she left office even though she achieved no major changes.
