Nikki Haley: Ambassador, governor... president?

Nikki Haley was barely known outside her native South Carolina before Donald Trump tapped her as ambassador to the United Nations back in 2017.
But Haley used the high-profile post to cultivate an image as a plain-speaking conservative, and a reputation for standing up to her boss — whom she is now challenging for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Republicans with ambitions for the highest American office have been keeping their powder dry until now, wary of getting a bloody nose from the man who wrote the book on no-holds-barred political brawling.
Haley, 51, appears to be made of sterner stuff, releasing a campaign launch video yesterday in which she did not mention the 76-year-old Trump by name but said it is “time for a new generation of leadership.”
Her message was clear: she is readying for a bare-knuckled nomination fight, regardless of who she is up against.
Speculation about Haley’s political future had been building since she left Trump’s cabinet in 2018, and she now starts an uphill battle to become her party’s White House candidate.
Haley was the face of diversity in a cabinet criticised for being too white.
She was not exactly on the Trump train from the get-go — she endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio during the Republican primary race in 2016 before backing Senator Ted Cruz.
Indeed, she called Manhattan property baron Trump “everything a governor doesn’t want in a president,” and just weeks before the election, admitted she was “not a fan” of the candidate.
So understandably, eyebrows were raised when Trump chose Haley — who had little foreign policy experience — as Washington’s voice at the United Nations.
Born in 1972 in Bamberg, South Carolina, Nimrata “Nikki” Randhawa rose quickly in the southern state’s politics, serving in its House of Representatives from 2005 to 2011, when she was elected governor.
Her conservative views and outspoken but collegial style were popular in her home state. She was also a fierce defender of Israel, and a ferocious critic of Russia. — AFP


Her life and political career at a glance

Daughter of immigrants
Haley, 51, has gained a reputation in the Republican Party as a solid conservative who has the ability to address issues of gender and race in a more credible fashion than many of her peers.
She is the daughter of two immigrants from India who ran a clothing store in rural South Carolina, and has spoken occasionally about the discrimination her family faced in a state where only 1.9% of residents are of Asian descent.
She graduated from Clemson University in 1994 with a degree in accounting and helped expand her parents’ clothing business. She took on leadership roles in several business organisations before winning a seat in the South Carolina state legislature in 2004. She is married and has two children.

South Carolina governor
Elected governor in 2010, Haley became the first woman to hold that post in South Carolina and the second person of Indian descent to serve as a state governor in the United States.
She received national attention in 2015 when she signed a bill into law removing the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol following the murder of nine black churchgoers by white supremacist Dylann Roof.
She also appointed a potential presidential rival, Tim Scott, to the US Senate in 2012.

UN ambassador
Haley endorsed several rivals to Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential nominating contest, and occasionally tangled with him during the primaries.
But she went on to serve as his ambassador to the United Nations, where she gained a reputation as a vocal defender of US interests. During that time, the US pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, which was unpopular with Republicans.

Relationship to Trump
Since leaving the Trump administration in 2018, Haley has distanced herself from the former president several times, only to later soften her rhetoric, saying he has an important role to play in the Republican Party.
She criticised Trump after his supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, but later sought to make amends with him.
“We need to acknowledge he let us down,” she said, referring to Trump’s actions leading up to the insurrection.
While she has criticised Republicans for falsely casting doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election, she campaigned during the 2022 midterms on behalf of multiple candidates who supported Trump’s false election fraud claims.
She has also previously said she would not run for president if Trump decides to run again — a stance she has now reversed.
She did not attend a recent Trump rally at the South Carolina state capitol. — Reuters