Due to such examples of deadly negligence, millions of Turks are angry with Soma Holding, some of whose managers were arrested over the weekend. But they are also furious with the government, particularly Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Mr. Erdogan’s missteps after the disaster explain much of the anger toward him. He visited Soma after the day of the incident and gave a press conference in which he repeated his longstanding line that such accidents are “in the nature of this profession.” He then cited similarly deadly mine accidents in other countries, such as in England in 1862 and 1866, in France in 1906 and in the United States in 1907. Many wondered, of course, why the prime minister was focused on the primitive conditions of previous centuries rather than modern-day standards and cutting-edge technology.

Then Mr. Erdogan took a walk in the town, where he seemed shocked to find angry faces and crowds who booed him. This led to a squabble between the prime minister, surrounded by his bodyguards, and protesters. In an amateur video posted online, Mr. Erdogan is heard shouting, “If you boo the prime minister of this country, you’ll get slapped.” A man in the crowd later claimed that the prime minister had indeed slapped him. Two days later, the man changed his story and claimed he was “thankful” to Mr. Erdogan for “saving” him from being beaten. Now, the man has claimed that he was both slapped by Mr. Erdogan and beaten by bodyguards and that he only changed his initial statement due to intimidation by pro-government officials in his town.

Another scandal has been recorded quite clearly: One of Mr. Erdogan’s advisers, Yusuf Yerkel, kicking a prostrate protester, who was held down by two gendarmes. Mr. Yerkel, whose footwork made worldwide headlines, later announced that the man had kicked a car in the prime minister’s convoy, and apologized “for not being able to control his anger.” He has neither resigned nor been dismissed, but took a week’s “sick leave for injury to leg” — presumably the one he used to kick the protester.

The fact that he has kept his job is yet another example of Mr. Erdogan’s famously patriarchal management model: The prime minister will never dismiss any of his men as long as they are unquestionably loyal to him.