Democrat given punishment, about to resign (5)
I believe the answer is:
demit
'to resign' is the definition.
(demit means to resign from a post)
'democrat given punishment about' is the wordplay.
'democrat' becomes 'd'.
'given' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'punishment' becomes 'time' (time in prison).
'about' is a reversal indicator.
'time' written backwards gives 'emit'.
'd'+'emit'='DEMIT'
(Other definitions for demit that I've seen before include "Send" , "Timed (anag.); to lower or to resign" , "Yield" , "Dismiss" .)