Tag: Haley

Why Nikki Haley shouldn’t be counted out just yet

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We are old enough to remember when pundits in 2015 declared that Donald Trump would never be president, and we can recall nights in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada in late 2019 and early 2020 when the same was said about Joe Biden.
Haley acknowledged the low expectations set by the nattering nabobs. “I’ve been underestimated before,” she said. She entered politics in 2004 by defeating South Carolina’s longest-serving House member. In 2010, she leapt from the statehouse to the governor’s mansion after defeating a field of seasoned politicians in a GOP primary and overcoming her close association with disgraced Gov. Mark Sanford. She was 38 years old.
Now 51, you can see why she looks at the 2024 race and thinks she can repeat that kind of upset — and why her speech yesterday was heavy on the theme of “a new generation,” which has the advantage of working against both Trump, who will be 78 next year, and Biden, who will turn 82 after the election. Much of the coverage emphasized that Haley was a throwback to the pre-Trump GOP, but she is not above Trump-style trolling. One of the few specific policies in her speech was “mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.”
The GOP primary is being described as a matchup between Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but the defining characteristic of recent GOP presidential primaries is volatility.
In 2008, there were three different frontrunners (former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Arizona Sen. John McCain). In 2012, there were five candidates who took the lead in national polls (former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, businessman Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum). In 2016, there were three leaders (former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Trump).
The cases of Cain and Carson are instructive. They were Black candidates who decried what Republicans now call “wokeism,” and they received a rapturous response from the party’s primary voters, who are overwhelmingly white. But as inexperienced outsiders to politics, neither could cope with the sustained scrutiny and attacks that came with their surges in the polls.
In addition to her relative youth, Haley is emphasizing an anti-woke pitch that has more resonance than ever among her party’s voters. “Every day, we’re told America is flawed, rotten and full of hate. Joe and Kamala even say America’s racist,” she said. “Take it from me, the first minority female governor in history, America is not a racist country.”
In recent primaries, it only took one breakout moment during a debate to kick off a surge in the polls. Haley has been in politics since 2004, which complicates her “new generation” pitch, but it also suggests that she’s more prepared for the scrutiny if she catches fire.

Much has been made of Haley reneging on her promise not to run if Trump does. This is great fodder for reportorial intrigue because it’s such clear evidence of the main rap against her: that she constantly shifts positions. But voters have a long history of ignoring such pledges. (Then-Sen. Barack Obama also said he wasn’t going to run for president in 2008, and it worked out okay for him.)
The Republican field now seems like it will be smaller than previously thought. In addition to DeSantis, here’s a list of the most credible potential candidates, oldest to youngest: former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (72), former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (66), former Vice President Mike Pence (63), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (60), former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (59), Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina (57), Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (56), former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney (56), South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (51) and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (48). (DeSantis is 44.)
Do any of those names jump out as unambiguously superior candidates to take on the two MAGA frontrunners?
The last piece of Haley’s argument for her candidacy is electability. “If you’re tired of losing, put your trust in a new generation,” she said to fellow Republicans.
She will not be the only candidate to make the “loser” case against Trump.
In an evenly divided country characterized by over two decades of close presidential elections, electability can be a tough sell to a party’s base. It generally becomes a more relevant pitch after a party has been out of power for a long time. (Think Bill Clinton in 1992, after Democrats were in the wilderness for 12 years.)
Being shut out of the White House for just one term might not be enough to convince GOP voters to abandon Trump as a clear loser, even if you throw in the results of 2018 and 2022. But it’s certainly the obvious argument to be making. And Haley may have as good a chance of making it stick as any of her potential opponents.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 16, 2023
Nikki Haley has all credentials to be next US President: eminent Indian Americans

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Charleston: Several eminent Indian-Americans believe that Republican leader Nikki Haley, who launched her White House bid, has great credentials and leadership skills to be the next president of the US.
Haley, 51, formally launched her 2024 presidential bid on Wednesday, casting herself as a younger and fresher alternative to the 20th century politicians like her one-time boss and former president Donald Trump.
“Nikki Haley comes with great credentials, as governor of South Carolina and with foreign policy experience as US Ambassador to the United Nations,” M R Rangaswami, founder of Indiaspora told PTI.
Haley, a former two-term governor of South Carolina, is the third Indian American to have launched a presidential bid. The other two are Bobby Jindal in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2020. Harris is now the Vice President of the country.
“It is gratifying to see the rise of Indian Americans in the Republican Party, mirroring their prominence on the Democratic side,” Rangaswami told PTI.
“She (Haley) represents the majority of the middle. She is not extreme either. The way she ran South Carolina was amazing,” said Raj Vasudeva, from South Columbia who has known her for more than 30 years now.
Vasudeva and his wife both were present at the formal launch of the presidential campaign. We believe in her. She has got a great heart and a great head. We believe she can bring both sides together,” he said.
“I think she would do great things for the country,” Vasudeva told PTI.

Dr Anil Yallapragada, who grew up in South Carolina and has lived in South Carolina for the past three decades along with his parents, said Haley is an extraordinary and special person.
“I believe South Carolina has a lot to do with her success in terms of the environment,” he said.
Describing Haley as “a highly talented and gifted leader” Dr Yallapragada said that her leadership would take the country to a new level and unite its people.
“The (Indian American) community is proud of her. She represents the best and brightest of us,” he said.
“She is a great human being,” he said.
“We want the best person for the job to run the country. There are very few people who are prepared to be the president of the country. She is one of them,” Dr Yallapragada told PTI.
He was among the small group of Indians to attend the launch of his presidential campaign of Haley.
Dr Yallapragada resides in his hometown of Charleston and is a practising Neurohospitalist and Board Certified Vascular Neurologist. He currently serves on the American Heart Association National Advocacy and Policy Board and the World Stroke Association Global Policy Board.
Kartar Singh, also from South Carolina, who has known the family of Nikki Haley for more than three decades, said that the former governor and the former US ambassador to the United Nations have all the credentials to be the president of the country.
“She’s a hard worker. She is very intelligent. She is very sincere in what she says. She is not like other politicians. I feel she had a very good chance in primaries,” said Singh, who now leads a retired life in South Carolina.
“She is very conservative. She is very reasonable. She’s outspoken. She is not afraid of anything. If something is right she will stick her head,” Singh said, referring to Haley’s decision to remove the confederate flag during her term as governor following a mass shooting in a church in Charleston.
“She can make brave decisions. She did a very good job as a governor, revived a lot of industries and opened up new ones in South Carolina,” Singh said.
Dr Rajwant Singh, chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education and senior advisor of the National Sikh Campaign said that it is a proud moment for people of colour in America that a first-generation American of Sikh background is aspiring for the top post in America.
“You may disagree with her policies and her political views but it is still a remarkable journey. Her father is a proud Sikh and wears a turban and had attended her swearing-in ceremony when she was elected governor of South Carolina,” Singh said.
“It is important for Americans to see that she belongs to a rich heritage and turban-wearing Sikhs are part of her immediate family. This widens the horizon for many people including Sikhs to aspire for higher office in the United States,” he said.
According to him, Haley’s running will also help sensitise Americans about Sikh identity and turban.
“Still a majority of Americans have a misconception about Sikhs and Sikh identity. So there is a good chance that her political campaign will help educate about the Sikhs in America as an additional benefit,” he said.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 16, 2023
Indian American Nikki Haley launches 2024 US Presidential Poll campaign

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South Carolina: With the aim of moving from the “stale ideas and faded ideas” of the past, the Indian American leader Nikki Haley on Wednesday, announced her candidacy for the 2024 Republican Presidential nomination.
Addressing a public meeting, here in Charleston, the former South Carolina Governor said, “I have devoted my life to this fight and I am just getting started. For a strong America, for a proud America, I am running for the President of the United States of America.”
Nikki Haley said, “I stand before you as the daughter of immigrants, as the wife of a combat veteran, and as the mom of two amazing children. I’ve served as governor of the great state of South Carolina and as America’s ambassador to the UN. Above all else, I’m a grateful American citizen who knows our best days are yet to come if we unite and fight to save our country.”
She said that her parents left India in search of a better life, and they found it in Bamberg, South Carolina.
“I am the proud daughter of the Indian immigrants. My parents left India in search of a better life, they found it in Bamburg, South Carolina. Every day my parents reminded my brothers and sisters, that even on our worst day, we are ‘blessed’ to live in America,” she said.
Attacking the Biden government, she said, “Now America is falling behind, the US is slipping, and nobody embodies that failure more than Joe Biden. Our leaders put too much trust in big government, and too little trust in our people. The national debt is at 30 trillion dollars. This is not America, that called to my parents, and this is not the America that I will leave to my children.”
“We are ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past, and we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future,” she added
Giving a ‘message’ to the Republican party, she said that the party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.

“Our cause is right–but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans. Well–that ends today. If you’re tired of losing, then put your trust in a new generation. And if you want to win – not just as a party, but as a country – then stand with me!” she said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Nikki Haley announced in a video on her Twitter, that she will be running for President in 2024, challenging her fellow candidate Donald Trump.
While announcing her decision, Nikki Haley called for new leadership in the party that she admitted had repeatedly failed to grab the popular vote in the presidential elections.
While sharing the video, she wrote, “Get excited! Time for a new generation. Let’s do this!”
“Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change,” The Hill quoted Nikki Haley as saying.
“Joe Biden’s record is abysmal, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Washington establishment has failed us over and over and over again. It’s time for a new generation of leadership,” she added.
In the video posted on Twitter, Nikki Haley said, “I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not black, not white. I was different. But my mom would always say, ‘Your job is not to focus on the differences, but the similarities’ and my parents reminded me and my siblings every day how blessed we were to live in the US.”
She further said, “Some look at our past as evidence that America’s founding principles are bad. They say the promise of freedom is just made up. Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
A former president of the National Association of Women Business Owners, she was first elected to the South Carolina House in 2004. Six years later, she became the first woman elected as governor of the state in 2010 and was the youngest governor in the nation when she took office in 2011. She resigned in the middle of her second term to become Trump’s ambassador to the UN – a role she served in until the end of 2018, CNN reported.
Haley began her political career as a state representative. She was elected the Governor of a staunch republican state South Carolina, by a very small margin of 51 per cent to 47 per cent. However, she went on to triple her margin during her re-election in 2014.
In a prominent moment from her career, Haley in 2015, signed a bill to remove the Confederate battle flag– the military emblem of the South’s fight to preserve slavery — from the South Carolina House.
After President Donald J. Trump chose her as his ambassador to the United Nations, Ms. Haley was confirmed overwhelmingly by the Senate, 96 to 4. She would serve in that role for about two years before resigning at the end of 2018.
As per The NYT, Haley was a face of the Trump administration’s policies at the UN on Israel, North Korea, Russia and Syria.
As per CNN, Haley has often attempted to walk a fine line between allying with Trump and distancing herself enough to appeal to his more moderate critics. She left the Trump administration in 2018 on good terms with the then-president – a marked contrast from other former Trump officials who have publicly fallen out with their onetime boss.
Then in April 2021, Haley had said that she would not run for President in 2024 if Donald Trump does, but she has decided to change her decision ultimately.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 16, 2023
Haley looks to move past Trump with a style that predates him

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Speaking to a packed covered pavilion, Haley, 51, made her opening case to the Republican electorate to take her bid for the White House seriously. She avoided any direct mention of her former boss, despite painting a picture of a party that should dump “the stale ideas and faded names of the past,” while requiring “mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years.”
“America is not past our prime,” Haley said. “It’s just that our politicians are past theirs.”
The event was not devoid of the pugilism and politics of personality that Trump has come to personify. Haley touted her standoffs with world despots as U.N. ambassador and denounced the social liberal culture that has become a bogeyman on the right.
But, stylistically, it was nothing like the rallies that have dominated the conservative movement since Trump’s rise in 2015, when his freewheeling, populist-tinged monologues to a crowd of costumed, adoring supporters became standard affairs. Indeed, the most attention-grabbing outfit at Haley’s downtown event was on a man wearing khaki pants and a Declaration of Independence golf shirt.
It remains to be seen whether Haley’s offering of pre-Trump style of politics will resonate beyond the bastion of support the former South Carolina governor has in her home state. But the response to her campaign launch will provide an early test as to what — if any — approach may work for a candidate without Trump as their surname.
The former president loomed over the event, and not just as the subtext of Haley’s jabs.
Outside the arena, a white pickup truck drove up and down King Street flying Trump flags from its bed, a reminder that the attempted un-MAGA-fication of the Republican Party has only just begun — and may well stall before the South Carolina primary. When Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a Haley endorser, mentioned Trump by name and suggested that Republicans should thank him for his past leadership as they look toward a new direction, he received tepid applause.
“In 2016, President Trump was exactly what our country and our party needed,” said Norman, who was part of Haley’s 2004 freshman class in the South Carolina statehouse, and endorsed her longshot bid for governor in 2010. The congressman, who had been a vocal supporter of Trump and voted against certifying the 2020 election results, called Haley a “fierce, bold leader who will fight for America.”

It was a sign that the constituency of voters who will be enthusiastic about Haley may be ready to move on from Trump but not repudiate him outright.
Voters like Diane Whitten of Georgia, who came to Haley’s rally with a friend. She said she had long supported the 45th president but believed “one of Trump’s biggest faults is his mouth.” She was interested in hearing from other potential GOP leaders, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Like other Republicans expected to enter the field, Haley will have to walk a fine line in how she criticizes the former president and his policies and personality. Trump put Haley on the international stage when he appointed her ambassador to the United Nations in 2017, an experience she touts as part of her pitch to voters.
Her announcement speech was a relatively paint-by-numbers expression of conservatism without the ad libs. She highlighted general GOP priorities like strengthening border security and boosting police resources, shrinking the national debt and allowing parents to have school choice. Calling for a “strong and proud, not weak and woke” country, Haley said America could prevent, not start wars, if it invests in a “strong military.”
Left unmentioned were some of the darker chapters of the Trump era — mainly the end of it.
Having once declared Trump toxic because of his handling of the insurrection on Jan. 6, Haley did not talk about or allude to that day in her remarks. While she will undoubtedly need Never Trumpers and traditional Republicans in her camp to remain viable, the calculation on Wednesday seemed to be that she must continue to appeal to the most conservative, anti-establishment wing of the party.
But Haley’s subtle touch didn’t go unnoticed at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s campaign sent out a news release titled “The Real Nikki Haley” as her event concluded, and allies of the former president bashed Haley for failing to offer policies that clearly differed from Trump’s.
By entering the race early, Haley positioned herself to not only capture much-needed earned media in the coming weeks — she heads to New Hampshire on Thursday, and to Iowa after that — but campaign funds too. Many of her potential GOP opponents are limited in their ability to raise federal funds until they enter the race, though her fellow South Carolina Republican, Sen. Tim Scott, has nearly $22 million on hand that could be transferred to a presidential campaign account.
Diana Stevenson of Columbia, who was already in Charleston for another event, came by Haley’s announcement to cheer on the woman she supported for governor in 2010 — whom she watched on the primary debate stage take on a handful of accomplished male candidates. “And she tore them all up,” Stevenson said. “It was gorgeous to watch. I think she could do it again.”
But Stevenson, like some other Haley fans in attendance on Wednesday, said she was also eager to see which other candidates jumped into the race. In Stevenson’s case, she also remains interested in Scott.
“We have an open slate — even though we have a former president running, we’re going to have a competitive primary field for the first time since 2016,” said Michael Bayham, who traveled to Haley’s announcement from outside New Orleans. He previously served as secretary of the Louisiana Republican Party, and remains active in GOP politics there.
“Nikki’s always presented herself well,” Bayham said, “so I’m curious how she’s going to make her case and create a constituency right now in a field being dominated by Trump and DeSantis.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 16, 2023
Trump parts with TV ad maker as firm’s partner goes to Haley

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A Jamestown representative did not respond to a request for comment, nor did spokespeople for Haley. But those familiar with the discussions said that Barney Keller, the consulting firm’s president, had signed on with Haley. Keller arranged to work for Haley independently of Jamestown, staying firewalled off from the rest of the firm during the campaign.
But the Trump campaign was not willing to participate in the arrangement.
The prominent GOP media firm has been in Trump’s orbit since 2016, when it began crafting commercials for the former president’s first campaign. Two Jamestown partners, Larry Weitzner and Jason Miller, were key architects of Trump’s advertising strategy, and Miller joined the campaign as a top adviser.
The Trump-Jamestown partnership carried over to the 2020 election, when the firm cut a series of ads for the reelection campaign, including a pair that aired during the Super Bowl.
Jamestown continued to work for Trump after his unsuccessful reelection bid. And Trump’s 2024 campaign paid the firm more than $30,000 in December to produce videos of the former president speaking direct-to-camera.
Jamestown has a long history in Republican politics, working for candidates across the country and up and down the ballot. The firm worked for a number of GOP candidates during the 2022 midterm election, including Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, New Hampshire congressional hopeful Matt Mowers and New Jersey Rep. Tom Kean Jr.
Trump has begun filling out his campaign team with top adividers, including Republican operatives Brian Jack, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. Last week, the Trump campaign also announced that Miller, who left Jamestown in 2017, would be joining the effort.
It remains unclear who will be replacing Jamestown in producing Trump’s 2024 ads.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 16, 2023
Opinion | The Real Reason Nikki Haley May Struggle to Break Through

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Her announcement video didn’t light the world on fire, but it was well done, and displayed her skills as a communicator.
She used her Indian American background to position herself as transcending the nation’s traditional white-Black racial divide. She defended America’s founding principles and history in a way that got some welcome pushback from the left. She touted her economic record as governor in South Carolina and her unifying response to the shooting at Mother Emanuel. She noted that Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections (Sub-text: former President Donald Trump failed to do it in both his runs). She hit the Washington establishment. And she talked of kicking bullies with her high heels.
The tone was firm, yet upbeat, and a good summation of the case for her campaign.
With Trump having announced and everyone else still on the sidelines, she’s taking advantage of the phony-war phase of the Republican nomination battle to get an extra increment of media attention as the second official candidate in the ring.
It’s a sign, though, that Trump doesn’t feel threatened by her candidacy that he — focused solely on Meatball Ron aka DeSanctimonious, aka Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — didn’t personally blast her upon her entry.
If the video is any indication, hers will be a highly conventional campaign. In all likelihood, she’s going to rely on her potentially history-making background as an Indian American woman and her youth to make her campaign stand out. The problem is that biography only goes so far — unless, say, you’re Dwight D. Eisenhower and won World War II — and there will be a number of other candidates with as strong or a stronger case to represent generational change.
Then, there’s her shifting position within the party. As an upstart gubernatorial candidate in 2010, she was a tea party favorite; then, as an incumbent governor who strongly opposed Trump, she was aligned with the establishment; then, as Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations, she gained some MAGA credibility; finally, as a critic of Trump in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, she lost that MAGA credibility.
Of course, her tone quickly changed when it became clear that the party wasn’t abandoning Trump.

The rule of thumb here should be: If you are going to follow the crowd, keep your head down until you know which way it is headed.
She also made herself a hostage to fortune by saying that she wouldn’t run if Trump ran again in 2024, apparently banking on him not getting in. When it became clear that this bet wouldn’t pay off, she came up with reasons — the need for generational change, Biden’s mis-rule — why it no longer applied.
She can look forward to getting asked about this statement at every Pizza Ranch in the state of Iowa.
On paper, someone who hasn’t been particularly offensive to any of a party’s factions should be in a good position. By seeking to avoid the enmity of anyone, though, politicians often earn the indifference of all. That’s the risk for Haley.

Nikki Haley was former President Donald Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations.
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Mark Wilson/Getty Images
The mood in the GOP is also not primed for conventional politics, which many Republicans will consider overly timid and not attuned to the urgency of the moment. On top of that, Haley doesn’t have a distinctive issue. She always could develop one as she’s out on the trail, but an amalgam of the GOP’s current positions is probably not going to break through.
There are more or less two models for winning a major party’s presidential nomination. One is to be the establishment frontrunner, like George W. Bush in 2000, Mitt Romney in 2012 or Hillary Clinton in 2016, with the institutional advantages to bulldoze upstart opponents. Another is to be an off-the-charts charismatic politician, like Barack Obama in 2008 or Donald Trump in 2016, who, by force of personality and with an intensely committed following, forges a unique, unexpected path to the nomination.
Haley isn’t the former and doesn’t look to be the latter, either. Her path has to be Trump and/or DeSantis being much weaker than they appear or blowing one another up in a GOP Ragnarök that creates an opening for her. This is going to be the hoped-for path of any number of other candidates, as well, adding yet another layer of difficulty.
She deserves to make her case, though. If fortune doesn’t always favor the bold, no one has ever won a presidential race by not entering it.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 15, 2023
Nikki Haley joins growing list of Indian-origin leaders dominating world politics

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Washington: With Republican Party’s rising star Nikki Haley launching her US presidential campaign against her former boss Donald Trump, she joins a long list of Indian-origin leaders dominating politics at important world capitals.
In the US, the growing influence of the Indian-American community can be seen in the success of Kamala Harris, who became the first woman and the first coloured Vice President of the country. She was a senator for California from 2017 to 2021. Harris, a Democrat, also served as the attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017. She was born to Indian and Jamaican parents in California.
In the crucial midterm elections in November, a record five Indian-American lawmakers from the ruling Democrat Party — Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, Ami Bera and Shri Thanedar — were elected to the US House of Representatives.
Harmeet Dhillon, a prominent politician in California, recently contested the election for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee (RNC).
Rishi Sunak was installed as Britain’s first Indian-origin Prime Minister last year. He is the youngest British prime minister in 210 years. He is also Britain’s first Hindu Prime Minister. Goan-origin Suella Braverman is serving as his Home Secretary.
Under Sunak’s predecessor, Boris Johnson’s Cabinet, Priti Patel was the Home Secretary. Alok Sharma was the International Development Secretary in Johnson Cabinet.
Ireland’s Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Leo Eric Varadkar is also of Indian origin.
Varadkar is the third child and only son of Ashok and Miriam Varadkar. His father, a doctor, was born in Mumbai and moved to the United Kingdom in the 1960s.

Antonio Costa has been the Prime Minister of Portugal since 2015. He is half Indian and half Portuguese.
Canada’s Defence Minister Anita Anand’s parents were Indians. Her father was from Tamil Nadu and her mother was from Punjab.
Apart from Anand, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet has two more Indian-origin members– Harjit Sajjan and Kamal Khera.
Priyanca Radhakrishnan is the first person of Indian origin to become a Minister in New Zealand. Born in Chennai to Malayali parents, is currently the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector.
Christine Carla Kangaloo, who is the president-elect of Trinidad and Tobago, was born into an Indo-Trinidadian family.
Pritam Singh, an Indian-origin Lawyer and author, has been serving as Leader of the Opposition in Singapore since 2020.
Devanand “Dave” Sharma became the first person of Indian origin to become a Member of the Australian Parliament in 2019.
Mohamed Irfaan Ali, the President of Guyana, was born into a Muslim Indo-Guyanese family in Leonora.
Pravind Jugnaut has been serving as the prime minister of Mauritius since January 2017. He was born into a Hindu Yaduvanshi family in 1961. His great-grandfather migrated to Mauritius from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in the 1870s.
Prithvirajsing Roopun, the president of Mauritius since 2019, was born in an Indian Arya Samaj Hindu family.
Chandrikapersad “Chan” Santokhi has been the president of Suriname since 2020. Santokhi was born in 1959 into an Indo-Surinamese Hindu family in Lelydorp.
Wavel Ramkalawan has been serving as the president of Seychelles since October 2020. His grandfather was from Bihar.
According to the 2021 Indiaspora Government Leaders List, more than 200 leaders of Indian heritage have ascended to the highest echelons of public service in 15 countries across the globe, with over 60 of them holding Cabinet positions.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 15, 2023
Haley enters the fray, a female candidate against a man known for mocking them

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Like others expected to enter the field, Haley has waffled in her support for Trump. She condemned him during the 2016 presidential primary, then served as his ambassador to the United Nations. She rebuked him after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, before announcing she would not run for president if he did so in 2024. Ultimately, she decided to become his first challenger.
Trump, for his part, has already sought to minimize her candidacy, referring to Haley as “overly ambitious.” It is a sign, other female politicians said, of the subtle and not-so-subtle jabs that are to come.
“She’ll probably be hit harder with it simply because she is a woman,” said former Republican New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, referring to Haley seemingly changing her mind on Trump, like most of the other GOP candidates expected to run. “But she’s been through those kinds of fires before, and she’s been a governor. She had to overcome odds there, and she’s proven that she can.”
Haley has not shied away from presenting herself as a trailblazer. She launched her political career with a 2004 state legislative run, ousting the state’s longest-serving state House member in a Republican primary before picking fights with the House speaker and leadership once she was there. She captured Tea Party support in another long-shot bid in 2010, for governor, when she rose from the bottom of the polls to surpass a sitting congressman, lieutenant governor and attorney general and win the Republican nomination. She went on to become South Carolina’s first female governor.
“When you talk about Michele Bachmann and Carly Fiorina, every time a woman puts themselves in a position of running for office and says, ‘I’m willing to take this step,’ it’s really a woman standing for every other woman who’s considered it or will do it in the future,” said Tudor Dixon, who ran for governor in Michigan this fall as the Republican nominee. “There is a glass ceiling that we’re breaking every time a woman runs, and you do face different challenges than a man. You see comments about women’s appearance — and that’s certainly something that we faced here in Michigan.”
While Haley has had a string of successes running for office before, the presidential campaign presents unique challenges, primarily because of who is currently in it. Trump has built a brand by attacking his perceived foes. But his swipes against women in and surrounding the 2016 presidential election were widely viewed as his most inflammatory insults, a cut deeper than belittling Jeb Bush as “low energy” or Marco Rubio as short.
He repeatedly called Hillary Clinton “nasty,” said Carly Fiorina had a “horseface,” declared that debate moderator Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever,” and went after the appearance of Ted Cruz’s wife.
Dixon, who was endorsed by Trump, noted that female candidates already face hurdles that their male counterparts do not. She said both she and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer faced sexist comments throughout the race about their looks and fitness. Dixon recalled being approached by a woman who said she supported her policies but couldn’t vote for her out of a belief that she should remain home with her four children. Another time, a woman asked who would take care of Dixon’s kids if she was elected governor.

Dixon is not yet endorsing a candidate in the 2024 presidential field, but said she was pleased to see Haley getting in the race. While conceding Trump is a “wildcard,” Dixon said she’s hopeful this cycle’s primary will be “a different kind of race” than 2016.
“It’s really not going to impress people if one of the men in the race comes out and tries to attack her on something that is a trivial issue, when she really is someone who has a phenomenal record in government,” Dixon said.
In her campaign launch video Tuesday, which came a day before Haley’s previously scheduled “big announcement” Wednesday in Charleston — Haley framed her candidacy as a product of the post-Trump era. She touched on cultural fights surrounding education and racism. But she focused more broadly on American greatness, stopping the “socialist left,” and her accomplishments as governor and ambassador. She also encouraged voters — and potential donors — to consider that a “new generation of leadership” in the Republican Party can go further than nominating a younger man.
Haley gave nods to her biography and gender, describing growing up as a “different” kid, the daughter of Indian immigrants in rural South Carolina. Having joked for years about her stilettos being effective weapons, she is now leaning into her femininity in her bid for president.
“You should know this about me, I don’t put up with bullies,” Haley said in the video. “And if you kick back, it hurts them more when you’re wearing heels.”
Beth Miller, a Republican strategist and past senior adviser to Fiorina, said Haley is not only going to need “thick skin,” but, like women in all spheres, be “over-prepared.”
“It is interesting, when we look back at Carly in 2016, she comes out of a male-dominated industry in tech and she can strike a blow, she’s a very, very good communicator, but there is that, ‘How do you lob a hit without coming off as bitchy?’” said Miller, who advised Fiorina’s Senate run in California before she ran for president. “Unfortunately it shouldn’t be that way, but it inevitably is.”
Haley is bracing for Trump to hurl insults at her. That’s most likely to happen if her poll numbers tick up in the coming weeks as she enjoys time in the national spotlight without other declared candidates.
On Sunday, Haley’s campaign team uploaded to her YouTube account a seven-minute video of Trump sitting side by side with her in 2018, speaking to reporters and complimenting Haley’s work as U.N. ambassador after she announced her resignation. Haley’s staff titled the video “Trump Praises Haley’s Service as Ambassador” and featured it prominently on her new campaign website.
Her allies, many of whom watched Haley’s unlikely political rise in South Carolina, acknowledge that her style has been off-putting to the GOP insiders she has taken on, but appealed to the state’s conservative voters that put her in office.
Katon Dawson, the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party who is one of Haley’s campaign surrogates in the state, said Haley was “very popular — not so much with the good ol’ boys, but… with the working-class voters of South Carolina.”
South Carolina state Rep. Nathan Ballentine, a friend of Haley’s since they were part of the same freshman class at the statehouse, recalled her primary election night in 2010, when she advanced to a runoff after having spent much of the campaign as the underdog.
“Nobody gave her a frickin’ shot in hell, and I can remember being in the war room, and she was pissed that she didn’t win outright,” Ballentine said. “I’m like, ‘This is good. This is huge!” And she’s like, ‘I wanted to win it outright.’”
Her drive has carried Haley further than any other woman in South Carolina politics — and further than most women in today’s GOP.
“You know, she talks about her high heels or whatever, like she kicks with a smile, or something like that,” Ballentine said. “I mean, she can stand toe to toe, she’s gone against [legislative] chairmen before, she’s gone against the speaker. That’s what got her in trouble, by the way, but that’s also what made her governor.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 15, 2023
55 Things You Need to Know About Nikki Haley

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27.
In the stretch run of the primary, a political blogger claimed to have had a romantic relationship with Haley, and a prominent lobbyist in Columbia who was a fundraiser for the campaign of one of her opponents said he and Haley had had a one-night stand. She vehemently denied the allegations. “I’ll never get over it,” she said later.
28.
Sarah Palin endorsed her. So did Mitt Romney. (She returned the favor two years later. “He was the governor of a liberal state,” she told the New York Times, referring to Massachusetts, “that had an 85 percent Democratic legislature, and he was able to work with them to cut taxes 19 times and balance his budget. To me, that’s what we need in Washington.”)
29.
The night Haley won the primary, she had booked the State Museum in Columbia for her party, but above the stage was a sign saying: “Confederate Relic Room.” She had staffers cover it up with red, white and blue balloons.
30.
She ran as a Tea Party reformer in a GOP wave year but beat her Democratic opponent by just four points. She pointed nonetheless to her victory as a sign of progress in her state. In her inaugural speech, she quoted a column by George Will: “If the question is which state has changed most in the last half-century, the answer might be California. But if the question is which state has changed most for the better, the answer might be South Carolina.”
31.
She prioritized as governor luring industry to her state. Some 400,000 more people were employed in South Carolina when she left office than when she had taken office six years before.
32.
To replace Jim DeMint in the Senate, she appointed Tim Scott, making him the first Black U.S. senator from South Carolina ever and the first Black U.S. senator from the South since 1881.
33.
In 2015, in the aftermath of Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine Black people in Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, she insisted the Confederate flag be removed from a monument honoring CSA soldiers in front of the capitol. It helped put her on TIME magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. “Nikki Haley led with determination, grace and compassion,” wrote Lindsey Graham, who added that she had “put a face on South Carolina that we were all extremely proud of.”
34.
Haley gave the GOP response to Obama’s final State of the Union speech in January of 2016, at a moment when Donald Trump was at or near the top of Republican polls heading toward the presidential primaries. “During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation,” she said in what most listeners took as a Trump rebuke. “No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.”
35.
In the run-up to that year’s important South Carolina primary, she endorsed Marco Rubio — also the child of immigrants, also a former state lawmaker, also a Tea Party Republican who came to political prominence in 2010. “I will do whatever it takes to help you beat Donald Trump,” she told Rubio. She attacked Trump for his business failures, for not releasing his tax returns and for not disavowing the Ku Klux Klan. Trump, she said, was “everything we teach our kids not to do in kindergarten.”

36.
In picking Rubio, she had utterly snubbed Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who had offered her early advice and inspiration in her own gubernatorial run and on whom she leaned for expertise on matters such as education reform. People close to Bush considered the low point of his presidential campaign her call to him explaining the best chance to stop Trump was for her a higher priority than loyalty. The relationship reportedly has never recovered.
37.
After Rubio lost and dropped out of the presidential race the following month, she shifted her support to (without fully endorsing) Ted Cruz. It was her “hope and prayer,” she said, that Cruz would become the next president.
38.
Her mother was a Trump supporter from the start, Haley would say in her 2019 book, With All Due Respect. “My mom must have been on to something.”
39.
Eventually, reluctantly, Haley voted for Trump. “This election has turned my stomach upside down,” she said in late October of 2016. “It has been embarrassing for both parties. It’s not something that the country deserves, but it’s what we’ve got.” She said she wasn’t “a fan” of either Trump or Clinton, the woman who had inspired her to run for office. “The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!” Trump tweeted. “Bless your heart,” she tweeted back.
40.
She was scheduled to go on NBC’s “Today” show the morning after the election and on “Meet the Press” that Sunday as a face of the post-Trump Republican Party. When Trump won, Haley canceled those bookings.
41.
When Trump asked her to be his ambassador to the United Nations, she had three conditions. She had been a governor, she told him, so she didn’t want to work for anybody else — she wanted to be in Trump’s cabinet and to work directly with Trump. She called herself “a policy girl” and wanted to be in the room when national security decisions were made. And she insisted she wasn’t going to be “a wallflower” and needed “to be able to say what I think.” He agreed to all three. “And he was true to his word,” she’s often said since.
42.
When she moved to New York for the U.N. job, she had next to no foreign policy experience or expertise and had never lived north of Charlotte. When she stepped down at the end of 2018, the New York Times’ editorial page described her as “that rarest of Trump appointees: one who can exit the administration with her dignity largely intact.”
43.
“In every instance I dealt with him, he was truthful, he listened, and he was great to work with,” she told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie during her book tour for With All Due Respect. “Make sure you order your copy today!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
44.
“On his policy, I agree with everything that he’s done,” she would say of Trump, softening the stance slightly when reminded of his administration’s deliberate family separation at the southern border.
45.
In 2020, after a police officer killed George Floyd, she said it “needs to be personal and painful for everyone.” Tucker Carlson objected. “Why is some politician telling me I’m required to be upset about it?” he said. “What Nikki Haley does best is moral blackmail.”
46.
After she left the Trump administration, Haley recounted in her memoir how “deeply disturbed” she was by Trump claiming that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the white supremacist protest in Charlottesville during which a counter-protester was killed. “A leader’s words matter in these situations. And the president’s words had been hurtful and dangerous,” Haley wrote.
47.
The day after the Trump-stoked insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, she said in a speech at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting that Trump’s “actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.”
“I think he’s lost any sort of political viability he was going to have,” she said the following week in an interview with POLITICO Magazine. “He’s not going to run for federal office again,” she said. “I don’t think he can. He’s fallen so far.”
48.
“They beat him up before he got into office. They are beating him up after he leaves office,” she said, on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show, not two weeks after that. “Give the man a break.”
49.
Not three months after that, she said she would not run for president if Trump ran again for president. “I would not run,” she said, “if President Trump ran.”
50.
Last November at a rally in Georgia for Herschel Walker, she suggested Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, a citizen and a pastor, should be deported. “I am the daughter of Indian immigrants,” she told a cheering crowd. “Legal immigrants are more patriotic than the leftists these days. They knew they worked to come into America, and they love America. They want the laws followed in America, so the only person we need to make sure we deport is Warnock.”
51.
Role models and heroes of hers, she has said, in addition to Hillary Clinton, include her mother, Margaret Thatcher, Martina Navratilova and Gabby Giffords. Joan Jett, too: “She was one of the first female rockers when female rockers weren’t accepted,” she once explained. “You broke every stereotype there was, and you were criticized and isolated for it. You never gave up and in turn reminded me to never give up,” she wrote to Jett in the acknowledgments of her 2022 book, If You Want Something Done: Leadership Lessons from Bold Women.
52.
She bristles at being labeled ambitious. “She may be the most ambitious person I’ve ever met,” in the estimation of Mick Mulvaney, the former congressman from South Carolina and Trump White House chief of staff. “If being ambitious is good at your job, then fine, you can call me ambitious,” she has said. “I will just consider myself a badass.”
53.
When she was asked a couple years ago if she thought she could do the job of president, she didn’t hesitate with her answer. “Of course,” she said.
54.
She says she’s not a planner. “Doors,” she once said, “open at a certain time.”
55.
She’s never lost an election.
Sources: POLITICO, POLITICO Magazine, The Atlantic, TIME, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, the Charleston Post and Courier, clemson.edu, whosonthemove.com, Marie Claire, Center for American Women and Politics; Can’t Is Not an Option: My American Story, by Nikki Haley; With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace, by Nikki R. Haley; If You Want Something Done: Leadership Lessons from Bold Women, by Nikki R. Haley.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 15, 2023
Nikki Haley announces 2024 White House run

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While she’s the first Republican after Trump to enter the race, several other GOP candidates are still expected to run, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.
Even with Haley’s head start launching her campaign ahead of others in the GOP, a potentially crowded Republican field could splinter support and fundraising resources. Already in her home state of South Carolina, Trump has earned a handful of prominent endorsements. And if Scott chooses to run, the two will likely enter a battle for endorsements from their many shared advisers, donors and allies in the Palmetto State and beyond.
Haley had previously said in 2021 she wouldn’t run for president in 2024 if Trump decided to run — and that she would support the former president — but last month, she indicated that she had shifted her tone. The 51-year-old forecasted her change of plans to Fox News in January, saying “It’s bigger than one person. And when you’re looking at the future of America, I think it’s time for new generational change. I don’t think you need to be 80 years old to go be a leader in D.C.”
Early polls show her trailing behind Trump and DeSantis, but should Haley win the GOP primary, she would make history as the first woman and first Asian American to lead the Republican ticket. She was previously the first female Asian American governor in the country, as well as the first Indian American to serve in a presidential Cabinet.
Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, opened her announcement video talking about the town she grew up in, Bamberg, S.C., where “the railroad tracks divided the town by race.” She goes on to say that “even on our worst day, we’re blessed to live in America,” giving examples of atrocities that have happened in other countries such as genocide in China and the Iran government murdering its own people.
Her pro-America message is joined by a call for new Republican leadership in Washington — “to rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our border and strengthen our country, our pride and our purpose.”
“Some people look at America and see vulnerability. The socialist left sees an opportunity to rewrite history,” Haley said. “China and Russia are on the march. They all think we can be bullied, kicked around. You should know this about me: I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.”
Haley is set to deliver remarks at a campaign event in Charleston, S.C., on Wednesday at 11 a.m. She’s also traveling to Iowa and New Hampshire later in the week, where she’ll host town halls.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 14, 2023