To be fair, they only elected the conservative party, the LDP; the party elected the prime minister. Granted, they've elected the LDP almost continuously since 1955. Of course, they tried electing the other party in 2009, but their leadership kept resigning. Of course, given the LDP's stranglehold on politics, one has to wonder why they feel a need to pander to the nettouyo.
I stopped paying to attention to politics about 5 years ago and am very surprised to learn that the major opposition party (DPJ?) has essentially fractured into multiple, smaller parties, all using a variation of the same name.
At this point, I'm not even sure who to vote for anymore.