(27 Oct 2014) Indonesia's new President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo inaugurated his new cabinet at the State Palace in Jakarta on Monday.
The "Working Cabinet" which was announced on Sunday, consists of 34 ministers.
Widodo was sworn in as president last week amid high hopes of progressive leadership in the world's fourth most populous country.
The 53-year-old had promised to promote professionals to top posts rather than party officials, who in Indonesia have a reputation for corruption and laziness.
He took the unprecedented step of asking the country's anti-corruption commission to vet Cabinet candidates, a process that reportedly involved several being rejected at the last minute.
Widodo named eight women in the line up of 30 ministers and four coordinating ministers, of note in a country that is home to more Muslims than any other in the world.
Among them is Retno Lestari Marsudi, the current ambassador to the Netherlands, who was named foreign minister, the first woman to take the post in the country's history.
Puan Maharani, daughter of former President Megawati Sukarnoputri, was named coordinating minister of human development and culture.
Megawati was widely regarded as an ineffectual leader with a reputation for corruption, and many of Widodo's supporters had urged him to resist pressure to put any of her associates or family members in his Cabinet.
The new defence minister is Ryamizard Ryacudu, a former army chief who led a large-scale military operation against separatist rebels in Aceh province in 2003.
He has a reputation for being hard-line and ultra nationalist.
Widodo also named former state-owned enterprises minister Sofyan Djalil as coordinating minister of economics.
While Bambang Brodjonegoro, a respected economics academic who has worked in government ministries before, was named finance minister.
Those appointments are likely to be broadly welcomed by investors, but ministers will need to quickly take steps to reassure the market they have the clout to cut politically sensitive fuel subsidies that are a drag on economic growth and speed up infrastructure projects in the country of 250 million people.
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