Panelists testifying at a Senate subcommittee hearing this week strongly suggested a major U.S. policy shift on South Sudan. One expert described expelling South Sudanese diplomats as the kind of bold action needed if Washington wants to send a clear message to Juba.

Mr. Khan's path to victory in the next general election, set for mid-2018, is far from assured, according to analysts, including Moeed Yusuf, associate vice president of the Asia Center at the United States Institute of Peace. “In some ways, this is a clear victory; there is no question about that,” Mr. Yusuf, who is visiting Pakistan, said in an interview. “Sans Panama Papers scandal, PML-N, the ruling party, was sitting pretty for the next elections.”

Despite enormous gains in poverty reduction and a long, steady drop in global violence over the past 70 years, progress is stubbornly stalled in those states considered most fragile. In the last decade, rising levels of violent conflict in states and regions like Syria, South Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, and East Africa have spawned four civil wars, the specter of four famines, and historic numbers of people displaced by violence, all of which are straining the global humanitarian system and threatening precious development gains.

"But Mr Khan's path to victory in the next general election, set for mid-2018, is far from assured," the report said quoting analysts, including Moeed Yusuf, Associate Vice President of the Asia Centre at the United States Institute of Peace, whose research and work centres on Pakistan.

Moeed Yusuf, associate vice president of the Asia Centre at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington, told The New York Times that while Mr Khan played a key role in highlighting the Panama Papers case, the verdict against Mr Sharif did not assure his victory in the 2018 elections.

PAKISTANI politics is back to its uncertain best. While all eyes are fixated on the Supreme Court’s verdict, of even more concern is the larger political question: what will all this mean for Pakistan’s quest for democratic consolidation?