lame duck 
noun
1An ineffectual or unsuccessful person or thing: most of her boyfriends have been lame ducks...
- Yet, without strong and committed patrons, there is a real danger that he could become an ineffectual lame duck quite soon.
- A spokesman for the FSA said: ‘This is not about propping up lame ducks.’
- Subsidy need not be the same as propping up lame ducks.
1.1chiefly North American A politician or administration in the final period of office, after the election of a successor: [as modifier]: a lame-duck president...
- That Clinton's final budget is quite openly tailored to meet the needs of Wall Street while ignoring the acute social problems facing masses of Americans cannot be attributed to the political weakness of a lame-duck president.
- Sharon thus did not manage to win the required support of 61 members in the Knesset, leaving him in charge of a lame-duck administration whose policies can be blocked by his opponents.
- As a result, the Chen administration has become a lame-duck administration during the interim period before the year-end legislative elections.