Well from time to time they make it pretty explicit too – like under Ayub Khan, Zia-ul-Haq, or Musharraf. About 30-odd of Pakistan's 75 years as an independent country have been explicitly under military dictatorships.
Pretty damning.
• 2008-13 PPP-led coalition government, which transferred power to the
• 2013-18 PML(N) government, which transferred power to the
• 2018-22 PTI (Khan's party) government, which was ousted in its penultimate year by a vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly.
1. PPP-led coalition government ousted in scandal of zardari's corruption. "mister ten percent", etc
2. nawaz sharif government ousted in scandal of nawaz sharif corruption (maybe that choice of microsoft word fonts in the faked documents for luxury UK real estate was not the best idea ever).
3. people finally "elected" khan
4. khan loses power in parliamentary no confidence vote
none of those are exactly what an outsider would consider to be the normal and orderly transfer of power in an electoral system
My own opinion: democracy is hardly a boolean value -- these transfers, faulty and flawed as they may be, did legitimize civilian rule in the public eye.
For your first bullet, the prime minister was kicked out after just over 4 years.
For your second bullet, the prime minister was kicked out after just over 4 years.
For the third bullet, Imran Khan didn't even last 4 years.