ASIA : Indonesia President Sails Into New Term : But vice president choice shows that military intends to play a prominent role in politics.

As elections go, it was pro forma. The session lasted only 20 minutes and there was no voting. The People’s Consultative Assembly session was more an acclamation than a cliffhanger for President Suharto of Indonesia as he was reelected for a sixth five-year term to lead the world’s fourth most populous country.

But since Suharto is 71 years old, Indonesians have scanned the proceedings of the consultative group, which meets for only two weeks every five years, for hints about what the meeting portends for Indonesia’s political future.

The assembly resolved one nagging controversy, choosing Try Sutrisno, former commander of the country’s armed forces, as Suharto’s vice president. Try, 57, is the first vice president chosen who was not part of the pre-independence struggle against the Dutch in the 1940s, and he is considered one of the second generation of Indonesia’s leaders.

More important, although Try is a Suharto loyalist, he is the candidate of the military. Many people consider his choice as vice president as a declaration of intent from the military that they plan to play a dominant role in the country’s politics.

“I think it’s clear that (Try) has the inside track to succeed Suharto as president,” said Jusuf Wanandi of Jakarta’s Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I hope that Suharto is going to groom him for the job.”

The problem is that Suharto, who like many Javanese uses only one name, has never spelled out a system for succession. The constitution provides for the vice president to become president in the event of the president’s death, but Suharto has never said how long he will serve or even if he plans to transfer power.

Although Suharto has been criticized for a lack of democracy and granting special business favors to members of his family, the trade-off for most Indonesians has been a period of remarkable stability and growth. Foreign investment has poured into Indonesia, and the nation has joined the ranks of newly industrialized countries rather than following the path of the Philippines to financial collapse.

When he took power 27 years ago, Suharto was an army general who intervened to stop a Communist coup. Since then, the military has enjoyed a parallel role to the civilian government, with powers to run businesses and other social functions.

Suharto angered the military leadership five years ago by naming a former state secretary, Sudharmono, as his vice president. Sudharmono was deeply disliked by the armed forces because he had worked inside the bureaucracy to curtail the military’s business activities and access to the president.

When it came time for this year’s nominations, the military made what amounted to a preemptive strike by announcing that it was supporting Try for vice president even before he had been nominated by the political parties. The effect was to make Try’s nomination an accomplished fact before anyone, including Suharto, could offer an alternative.

But also gaining strength in the wings is a political movement coalescing around B. J. Habibie, the minister of research and technology. Habibie leads a group called the Assn. of Muslim Intellectuals, which is quietly campaigning for transition to civilian rule in Indonesia.

A large number of Muslim intellectuals were appointed to sit in the 1,000-member assembly this year, in sharp contrast to previous sessions, when prominent Muslims were excluded.

Although the country is 90% Muslim, the military leadership remains opposed to a politically active Islamic movement, which it sees as a threat to the country’s non-sectarian tradition.

While Habibie’s candidacy for the vice presidency was cut short by Try’s entry into the ring, Muslim activists have been campaigning recently to persuade Suharto to bring more Muslims into the Cabinet, especially for jobs in the key economic sector, now held by members of the minority Christian community.

Thus, battle lines of the succession are being drawn between the military on the one hand and an activist Islamic movement on the other. Suharto, regarded as a crafty politician, has carefully balanced one side against the other. But hardly a word of the deepening tensions was aired publicly at the assembly sessions.

The consultative assembly is part of Indonesia’s democratic window dressing and is run much like the Parliament in the former Soviet Union: Voting is unanimous and leaves little to chance. The only dissent this year occurred when a handful of demonstrators appeared outside the meeting hall demanding Suharto’s replacement. They were quickly arrested.