Eli Hagen

Eli Hagen (born at Dombås in Norway) is the wife and secretary of the Norwegian politician Carl I. Hagen, leader of the right-wing party Fremskrittspartiet ("The Progress party"). The Norwegian author Jan Martin Iversen claimed a significant role for her in the development and survival of the party in his book from 1998 on the first 25 years of the party.

She became notorious for accidentally driving her Volkswagen Passat down the monumental stairs in front of the Royal Palace in Oslo one night in November 2001. Within a few days a Norwegian website made an "Eli-Rally" game, and spam was sent out featuring a photoshopped fake ad for the "EliShake", a milkshake made in the 15 seconds it takes to drive down the palace stairs shown in the background of the ad.

The next year (2002), the Norwegian Road Authority (Statens vegvesen) and The Norwegian Council for Road Safety (Trygg Trafikk) featured her in an advertising campaign on safe driving with children in the car. In the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet she commented that "You need to have some ability for irony at your own expense. I think driving down those stairs was a trifle. It is much more important that children are properly secured in the car." The advertisement showed an image of Hagen behind the steering wheel with a small boy in the back seat and the text "Children must be properly secured in the car, no matter how short the distance." above the picture, and "No matter who is driving!" below.

After the incident, the Norwegian press has been referring to people accidentally or by purpose driving down the palace stairs or other monumental stairs as "doing an Eli Hagen".

External links

All references are in Norwegian.

• Dagbladet (on Jan Martin Iversens book)
• Dagbladet (on the advertising campaign)
• The Norwegian Radio website (on the EliRally and the EliShake)