Analysts said his resounding victory gives him a stronger mandate to pick professionals for his next cabinet and push through reforms as he faces a daunting task of tackling the effects of the global economic crisis.

Last week's bombings on two luxury hotels in Jakarta, which killed nine people including two suspected suicide bombers, have raised fears of a return of instability to the world's most populous Muslim nation after a few years of calm.

Police suspect the attacks were the work of Islamic extremists linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group.

Experts hailed this month's peaceful election as an indication of how Indonesia has come a long way since the turmoil that marked former dictator Suharto's departure in 1998.

A decade ago, South-East Asia's largest economy was in shambles, being hard-hit by the region's 1997-98 financial crisis.

Until a few years ago, Indonesia still grappled with a separatist insurgency in Aceh, deadly bombings carried out by Islamic militants and Muslim-Christian violence in the east of the country.