Santiago de Chile, March 11 (RHC) -- Michelle Bachelet assumed the presidency of Chile on Tuesday, promising to narrow the country's inequality gap.

Bachelet accepted the presidential sash from Senate head Isabel Allende, the daughter of deposed socialist President Salvador Allende, whose overthrow in 1973 ushered in the seventeen-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Bachelet's swearing-in in the port city of Valparaiso, the seat of Chile's Congress, was attended by high-level delegations from across the region.

Bachelet has promised to finance educational 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.

During her first presidency, from 2006 to 2010, Bachelet won praise for guiding Chile through the global economic crisis, even using government reserves to help the poorest Chileans during hard times. She enjoyed 84 percent approval when she left office.