When a passenger train rammed a rickshaw in Pakistan in 2017, killing seven schoolchildren, Imran Khan rolled the tragedy into his campaign to become prime minister, holding up the accident as a hallmark of government incompetence and corruption that only he could fix.

“The railway minister must resign,” he said at the time, insisting that it was the proper response to such a failure in a democracy. “Otherwise, he can influence the investigation.”

But Mr. Khan, now the prime minister, took a very different stance when a train caught fire on Thursday, killing at least 75 people and injuring 43 — one of the worst railway accidents in Pakistan’s history. He stood by his railway minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, who, in turn, blamed passengers who had used a prohibited gas stove.

Mr. Khan’s promises to restore transparency and good governance helped catapult him to victory in the August, 2018 general election, but as the country mourns the train-inferno victims, there is a sense of resignation that Pakistan only seems to be getting worse. Its economy is stagnant, its infrastructure is decrepit, and its political class seeks to absolve itself of blame, regardless of who is in power.