Con elected crony (6)
I believe the answer is:
inmate
'con' is the definition.
(I know that con can be written as inmate)
'elected crony' is the wordplay.
'elected' becomes 'in' (in government).
'crony' becomes 'mate' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in'+'mate'='INMATE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for inmate that I've seen before include "Occupant" , "you mightn't want him to escape" , "Inhabitant of prison or hospital" , "Inhabitant of prison or other institution" , "One is in jail" .)