Last week, Lebanese political groups finally agreed on the formation of a new government after a nine-month deadlock.
The agreement saw the appointment of Fady Jreissati as Environment Minister, replacing former Tarek al-Khatib. Just days after his appointment, Jreissati posted a photo of himself shaking hands with al-Khatib, jokingly announcing that he's changed the wilting plant that was sitting in the corner of the former minister's office.
"Our first achievement, we changed the plant," he captioned the photo posted on Twitter.
This comes after a viral meme began making the rounds online in which the former minister can be seen holding meetings at his office. The first photo shows a lively plant in the corner of the office. Months later, the plant is again photographed, except it appeared to be dead.
An environment minister who cannot sustain a single indoor plant?
People definitely had questions and were quite relieved that al-Khatib has finally been replaced.
But, it wasn't all positive news. People had concerns over the newly appointed minister, considering he works in the real estate industry.
According to MTV Lebanon, Jreissati is the executive director and CEO of local real estate company SAKR. Real estate has long impacted the environment in many ways, so his appointment is pretty ironic, no?
SAKR's Facebook page describes itself as such:
"An eco-friendly master developers providing distinguished green properties."
Still, people are quite concerned considering Lebanon's greenery is slowly vanishing. Not to mention, Beirut is oftentimes referred to as a concrete jungle.