Jokowi sworn in as new Indonesian president

Jakarta

THE former governor of Jakarta, Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, took the oath of office on Monday, becoming the seventh president of Indonesia, capping a meteoric rise in less than a decade from life as a furniture business owner hundreds of kilometres from the leafy suburbs of the elite in Jakarta to the head of state of the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Tens of thousands, some decked out in the traditional garb of this massive and diverse archipelago, waved banners, belted out ballads at…