NEW YORK: Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has emerged as a “serious” contender to become the next US secretary of state, a top aide to President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday, amid reports of intense infighting over key posts in the new administration.

Trump — the 70-year-old Republican billionaire who takes office in just nine weeks — was to meet with Vice President-elect Mike Pence later in New York to discuss the next round of cabinet appointments.

Giuliani, a member of Trump’s inner circle, had been considered a leading candidate for attorney general, but at a public forum in Washington on Monday, he said he would not be heading the Justice Department.

“His name has been mentioned in a serious way in connection with secretary of state, a job that he’s qualified for and a job that he would do exceedingly well,” Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, said on Fox News.

The 72-year-old Giuliani was mayor of New York on 9/11, and his decisive leadership after the World Trade Centre’s twin towers were toppled in the September 2001 attacks made him a national hero.

A crime-fighting former prosecutor who cleaned up New York and lifted its fortunes, Giuliani made a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 but withdrew after learning he had prostate cancer.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2016