The nonidentification of female candidates’ names on some Fatah lists participating in the Palestinian local elections slated for Oct. 8 has sparked angry reactions on social networking sites. Several lists running in the local elections appeared online Aug. 26, not giving any of the names of the female candidates, however, as they were listed as “sister” or “wife of.”

Journalist Nour Odeh, the spokeswoman for the previous Palestinian government, wrote on her Facebook page Aug. 29, “My name is Nour Odeh and women's names should not be left out. I will not vote for a list that deals with women in this manner. Period.”

Odeh told Al-Monitor, “All parties — left-wing or right-wing — favor conservatives and act cowardly when it comes to civil secular identity. There are those who tend to demonize the secular thought and civil state.”

The director of the Women's Affairs Technical Committee in the Gaza Strip, Nadia Abu Nahla, agreed with Odeh and told Al-Monitor, “Fatah started off as a secular national movement, but in recent years — and after Hamas took over Gaza — the movement has taken on a more conservative character and has become closer to the mainstream trends of society.”