Government official gets a rise (slightly less than fifty percent) (4)
I believe the answer is:
tsar
'slightly less than fifty percent' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'government official gets a rise' is the wordplay.
'government official' becomes 'rst' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'gets' indicates putting letters inside (gets can mean captures or absorbs).
'rise' says the letters should be written backwards.
'rst' enclosing 'a' is 'rast'.
'rast' reversed gives 'TSAR'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tsar that I've seen before include "Monarch of old Russia" , "Supreme authority" , "Russian monarch" , "Rats to the Russian emperor" , "Title given to the kings of Bulgaria" .)