Islamabad: Pakistan’s Supreme Court this morning ordered the removal of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office over accusations of corruption in the Panama Case. The verdict is likely to shift the country’s tumultuous political balance and deal a serious blow to the legacy of a man who helped define the past generation of Pakistani politics. The removal of Sharif, who was serving his third term in office, comes roughly a year before his term was to end. The verdict means the governing political party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, must choose an interim Prime Minister to replace Sharif until the next general election, which is scheduled for mid-2018.

Announced by the five-member Supreme Court, the verdict caps more than a year of high political drama, breathless court proceedings and a piercing investigation into the finances of the Sharif family.

Watching the courtroom drama was the country’s powerful military, which has traditionally decided the fate of civilian governments. There had been hushed speculation that the court, in coming to its decision, had the tacit, if not overt, backing of powerful generals.

The charges against Sharif and three of his children — two sons and a daughter — stemmed from disclosures last year in the Panama Papers, which revealed that the children owned expensive residential property in London through a string of offshore companies. In their ruling, the justices also ordered the opening of criminal investigations against the Sharif family.

Imran Khan, the opposition politician who has been spearheading the campaign against Sharif since he took power in 2013, stands to gain the most politically from the removal of Sharif. Khan has doggedly and almost obsessively led the charge against Sharif and rallied a wide swath of the public against him through a mix of street agitation and court petitions.