Lost no time putting up for election (3)
I believe the answer is:
ran
'lost' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to competing as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'no time putting up for election' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'no' could be 'n' (common abbreviation) and 'n' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'ra' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ran that I've seen before include "was in charge" , "Hastened" , "Was candidate" , "Went fast" , "Organised" .)