Beirut: On his second trip in less than a month to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea arrived in Riyadh on Sunday night, where he was expected to meet with senior Saudi officials for talks over the fate of his presidential candidacy.

Last November, Geagea met with the former Prime Minister and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri too, though the more critical contacts were with Saudi leaders who were anxious to solve the lingering presidential dilemma that left the post vacant after the incumbent, Michel Sulaiman, completed his six-year term of office on May 25, 2014.

Fundamental differences remained unresolved then as now.

Geagea, who is the March 14 coalition candidate, is in a virtual deadlock with his principal rival, the Free Patriotic Movement non-candidate candidate General Michel Aoun, on account of his refusal to run for office unless there is a prior agreement on his nomination although Hezbollah, which forms the March 8 cornerstone, formally nominated him.

Calls for the election of a consensual nominee fell on deaf ears as both asserted their rights to fill the post and move into Baabda Palace.

The only other candidate, Aley deputy Henri Helou who enjoys the backing of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) — a swing group that can ensure necessary votes to either March 8 or March 14 candidates — refuses to withdraw as well.

Geagea’s trip coincides with intensified attempts to launch a dialogue between the Future Movement and Hezbollah, ostensibly to encourage both sides to compromise and settle on a neutral nominee, even if there were no signs of either side willing to embark on such a quest.

Lebanon’s political establishment and what’s left of its elites were aware that growing sectarian tensions could drag the country into renewed clashes though most were reluctant, or lacked the courage, to take the necessary steps to prevent the spillover of the war in Syria.

As Lebanon entered the Christmas and New Year’s holiday period, Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Butros Rai urged the four rival Maronite leaders — Aoun, Geagea, along with Phalange Party leader Amine Gemayel and the head of the Marada Movement Sulaiman Franjieh — to make required sacrifices even if his pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

Ideally, all four ought to withdraw from the presidential race now that the elapsed time determined how difficult the putative election of any one of them would be.

Rai, who played a murky role by failing to stand with a neutral candidate from the onset, has harshly criticised parliamentarians for flunking their constitutional duty to elect a president.

Still, the patriarch’s assumptions that his ecumenical efforts will eventually lead to the election of a more or less neutral president were overtly optimistic. Though he called on both Geagea and Aoun to compromise, he could not bring them together.

Ironically, the Maronite leader’s desire to remain equidistant from all sides reinforced the deadlock, which was what Geagea presumably was resolute to untangle in Riyadh.