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resident Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono could not have picked a worst final act in leaving the political stage after 10 years at the helm. Forget all other legacies he may have built for himself. He will go down as the president who turned back the clock on Indonesia'€™s democracy by exactly 10 years.

When his Democratic Party walked out of a debate in the early hours of Friday over how heads of local governments should be elected, it paved the way for the House of Representatives to vote for a law that essentially takes away sovereignty from the hands of the people and puts it firmly in the hands of political parties or, more precisely, the oligarchs that control them.

Although the Democratic Party did not take part in the vote a few minutes later, there is no doubt in the minds of many people that the party, and particularly Yudhoyono as its chairman, is largely to blame for allowing the House to vote for the new law that gives local legislative councils (DPRDs), rather than the people, the right to elect heads of local government.

The direct election mechanism was introduced in 2004 as part of the larger reform agenda, along with the way the nation elects its president and vice president. That same year, Yu-dhoyono became the first Indonesian president to have been elected directly by the people. All governors, mayors and regent chiefs since then have also come to power the same way.

The new Regional Elections Law endorsed by the House last week will put the power to vote for local government heads back in the hands of DPRDs. These elected council members, in turn, are controlled by political parties in Jakarta.

As the largest faction in the House, the Democratic Party had the power to tip Friday'€™s vote one way or the other. Yudhoyono had earlier posted on YouTube an interview in which he defended the direct-election mechanism, raising hopes that his party would vote in its defense.

So, when his party walked out of the debate and, therefore, out of the vote, many accused Yudhoyono of being '€œtwo-faced'€. Since Friday, social media sites, including Yudhoyono'€™s own Twitter account, have been flooded with posts vilifying him for turning his back on the people.

This, many argue, will be his biggest legacy when he leaves office on Oct. 20.

His final act is a reaffirmation of a man who missed out on so many opportunities even when they were presented to him on a golden platter.

Here is a President who came to power with massive support in 2004, and an even bigger majority when he was reelected in 2009, yet has been unable to create a single positive legacy.

He could have been the President who led the anti-graft campaign, but the corruption scandals involving members of his own inner circle over the last five years denied him that status.

He would have been remembered as someone who had kept the economy growing and brought prosperity to the nation, but even that has become doubtful as he is leaving behind a big fiscal mess with fuel subsidies now eating up as much as a quarter of the state budget.

He could have pushed Indonesia further on democratic reform. Not only did he fail, but his action last week raises doubts about his democratic credentials.

Even if he decides to continue to be politically active after he leaves office, he will likely find the going tough, not only for himself but also for his Democratic Party. Both the President and his party have seen their popularity fall dramatically since their peak in 2009.

The party, which won the most votes and House seats in 2009, was relegated to third position in the April election this year. The Democrats could not even come up with a credible and popular candidate to put forward for the July presidential election. The party ended up supporting the candidacy of Prabowo Subianto, who went on to lose the election to Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo.

Today, both the Democrats and chairman Yudhoyono look more like spent forces.

They obviously have not learned the lesson well that voters can be cruelly unforgiving, in the way they abandoned early election winners like the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), winner of the 1999 elections, and the Golkar Party, the 2004 election winner.

There is no doubt that Friday'€™s vote represents a huge setback for Indonesia'€™s democracy.

It was a display of the growing clout of political parties in trying to control the electoral process.

The country'€™s powerful oligarchs, which control some of the big political parties, flexed their muscles and came away victorious. This was a repeat of a collaboration involving Yudhoyono'€™s Democratic Party, Golkar under businessman Aburizal Bakrie and the Gerindra Party under Prabowo. All represent some of the country'€™s powerful political dynasties.

They didn'€™t always have their way though.

In the July presidential election, the Democrats, Golkar and Gerindra, as well as a handful of Islamic parties, joined forces to support Prabowo'€™s presidential bid. They lost to Jokowi, a complete outsider who challenged the dominance of the oligarchs.

Jokowi ran on a ticket provided by the PDI-P, the party controlled by Megawati Soekarnoputri and the country'€™s oldest political dynasty, stemming from Indonesia'€™s first president Sukarno, which has seen its strength weakening. As much as Megawati wanted to run, she knew Jokowi was the only savior for her family'€™s political fortunes. Early this month, Megawati reaffirmed her position as PDI-P chair.

The vote over the Regional Elections Law is not the end of Indonesia'€™s democracy, or the beginning of the end as some have gloomily predicted.

Those who have followed Indonesia'€™s march to democracy should be familiar with the reformation dance of two steps forward and one step back.

This time, we saw the nation take three huge steps back instead of one. But there is no reason to doubt that Indonesia will recover from this episode, this time without Yudhoyono or his Democratic Party. If anything, both have now come to be seen as anti-democratic forces that the pro-democracy movement will have to watch out for.

What a sad and pathetic departure from the political stage for a President who had otherwise done a reasonably good job for the last 10 years.