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In my opinion, you should never expect this Mr. Fernandez nor Fr. Pagliarani to ever be transparent or sincere. The work that they do demands them not to.

In other words: Cardinal Fernandes and Fr. Pagliarani are mainly Diplomats, which basically means they have to be sleazy, sneaky, double tongues, liars.

But I thought the one (Fernandez) was in charge of defending the Truth, and the other (Pagliarani) was the figure head of the fight for Tradition in Faith, Morals, Liturgy, Church Law, etc?

It is not their work, their function, that makes them "Diplomats". In fact, they are betraying their Duty of State. No. They act as Diplomats because their are Liberals.

Like Archbishop Lefebvre said about Liberals, with Paul VI as an example: "Liberals suffer a form of schizophrenia. They want to be faithful to the Church AND to the Post-French Revolution Secular World. That was the tragedy of Félicité de Lammenais. Their soul is divided between these two opposite views." (Or words to that effect. I quote from memory).

If you are a Liberal, therefore, you are spiritually sick, and you try to hide it to yourself and the world. Hence your "Diplomatic" words and actions.

Now, about the question of the names of the candidates it might not be kept confidential because of sleaziness. It might be, as somebody said above, to protect the candidates from harassment, or other troubles.

Nevertheless, at some point their families and close friends will have to be told, as hotel rooms and plane tickets will have to be booked. The names are bound to leak, and secrets will be hard to keep. The SSPX will want to preempt such leaks, and will make a public announcement early enough.

In any case, we don't really need to know beforehand. There is nothing we can do about the candidates, except talk and analyze. We can very well wait for that until July 1st.

Now, there might be another explanation for the names being kept secret:The SSPX has not yet decided on a final list of names, and July 1st might even be delayed.. We don't know yet what the conclusion of the show will be. Maybe the names will be a mix of candidates from the Conciliar Church and from the ranks of the SSPX. The actual "fight" between the SSPX and Rome, might be a a psy-op to prepare the SSPX clergy and laity to accept Conciliar candidates.

How long before the 1988 consecrations were the future bishops' names released? Does it matter that the faithful know who they will be ahead of time? Do they have any right to know?

Absolutely the faithful have a right to know the identity of the consecrands.  Consider the Banns of Marriage; part of the reason the priest makes the announcement is so the faithful can come forward should they have objections for one reason or the other. Many of the chapels do not announce the Banns because everyone knows everyone else. Most cities only have one or a few traditional chapels. Bishop Sheen years ago refused to ordain a guy up in Wisconsin.  The mother of the man actually thanked him for not ordaining her son. In general I am opposed to anonymous or last-minute consecrations.