Apparently more concerned with catching ’em all than running the country, the prime minister of Norway was recently caught playing Pokémon Go during a debate in parliament (below).
While many of you may have already forgotten about the hugely successful smartphone game that dominated people’s lives over the summer, some people, like Norwegian leader Erna Solberg, clearly aren’t done catching all the creatures.
Haha, herregud. @erna_solberg spilte pokemon Go i Stortinget under #trontaledebatten … mens @Trinesg sto på talerstolen! pic.twitter.com/WwagLoJit7
— Eivind Trædal (@eivindtraedal) October 5, 2016
But perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised about Solberg’s questionable antics. After all, she recently revealed her love for the game when she took time out between political meetings in Slovakia, walking several miles in search of the game’s monsters.
“The 55-year-old conservative leader [said] that while she was also hunting for Pokémon monsters, she was mainly trying to hatch eggs to get her hands on the rarest Pokémons, which requires some players to walk as much as 10 kilometers,” a Norwegian news outlet reported at the time.
And it’s not just the prime minister
It seems Norway’s politicians have a real soft spot Pokémon Go. In August, Liberal Party leader Trine Skei Grande was criticized for playing it during a defense committee hearing.
Funnily enough, it was Grande who was speaking earlier this week when Solberg decided to whip out her phone for a quick Go session.
Grande later tweeted: “She heard what I said, we ladies can do two things at the same time you know.” In response, the prime minister told Norway’s TV2, “I think that Trine will like that I opened the game while she was at the pulpit.”
Not everyone was so relaxed about the incident, with some of her opponents describing her behavior as “disrespectful” to parliament.
Clearly not afraid to share details of her game-playing exploits with her electorate, Solberg informed reporters back in 2014 that she’d passed level 300 in the hit game that was Candy Crush Saga.
“It’s relaxing to play Candy Crush and other relatively uncomplicated games,” she said at the time. “In a hectic election campaign there will not be much time for it, but sometimes I take the iPad with me on a plane or in the back seat of the car.” Or, judging by this week’s shenanigans, into parliament.
