Nikki Haley poised to enter 2024 US presidential race

Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and two-term governor of South Carolina, is reportedly poised to announce she is seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

With a campaign kick-off planned for 15 February in Charleston, South Carolina, the 51-year-old would become the second major Republican candidate for the presidency, after her former boss Donald Trump launched his bid in November.

Ms Haley would be the third Indian-American to seek a presidential nomination. She follows Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, whose bid in 2015 never gained significant traction, and current Vice-President Kamala Harris, who sought the 2020 nomination.

During her time as South Carolina governor, Ms Haley developed a reputation as a business-friendly leader who focused on attracting major companies to the state. She gained national prominence for her response to the racially motivated mass shooting at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church in 2015, which included a successful push to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state capitol in Columbia.

Although she endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio in the 2016 Republican presidential contest, Mr Trump offered her a position in his cabinet as UN ambassador after he won the White House. She served there for two years and, unlike many of Mr Trump's early appointees, never had a public falling out with the president.

Ms Haley did, however, criticise Mr Trump's behaviour up to and during the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters. The day after the riot, she said in a speech that "his actions since election day will be judged harshly by history".