El Reino (The Realm), the new Argentinian political thriller series, is gripping, sordid and wonderfully acted. It takes us into a hectic political world, in the midst of a presidential campaign. An ambitious candidate supported by various powerful lobbies has offered the vice-presidency to a celebrity evangelical preacher who has created his own church in Buenos Aires. By joining forces with this Christian religious movement, the presidential candidate hopes to win the loyalty of evangelical voters, a growing and highly politicised force spread throughout Latin America.
The series begins with the murder of the presidential candidate; the more the story evolves, the more we understand the level of corruption at the heart of politics and the importance of the growing influence of the Evangelicals, whose hidden agenda is to control key ministries such as culture, education, justice, the home office and religious affairs.
American meddling
The series shines a light on CIA meddling in politics and finance in Argentina. The Americans seek to prevent the radical left from gaining power at all costs. In the same way as the CIA helped the Mujahedin, the future Taliban, defeat the secular communist regime in Kabul, in this drama they support Evangelicals in Latin America as guarantors of private property, rather than taking the risk of allowing the radical left to nationalise strategic industries.
There is also a brief flashback to the financial crisis of 2001, when the CIA facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars from Argentina to North America. These dollars, which belonged to Argentinian savers, were flown to banks in the US, Canada and Europe just before the government in Buenos Aires froze all bank accounts in the country, putting an end to the dollar-peso parity. A terrible devaluation happened immediately after and all Argentinian bank accounts in dollars were converted into pesos but with a different exchange rate than that of the international market – a totally unfair measure, highly disadvantageous for the Argentinian middle class. Instead of having four pesos for one dollar, they had just one peso; one of the biggest heists in modern history!
Sex scandals
As witnessed in both politics and religion, sex scandals are quite common: chemsex gay orgies in the Vatican, Jerry Falwell Jr’s voyeurism [1], Dominic Strauss-Kahn’s escorts and the terrible paedophile network in Belgium of which we’ll never know the whole truth. In this series, we are plunged into the middle of a huge sex scandal that secret agents try to cover up: the ends justify the means. As for the leaders, they try to muzzle the judges. In Argentina, the suspicious death of judge Alberto Nisman in 2015 shocked the whole nation.
The threat posed by religious fanatics
El Reino is not cheerful but is superbly acted and its story is realistic so far (season 1). This gripping series warns us of the growing influence of evangelical churches in national politics. Although it is unlikely the evangelists will gain power in Argentina since today’s Argentinian society is progressive towards gays, accepts non-binary identity and has recently legalised abortion, many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are more and more influenced by evangelical churches, as we have recently seen in Brazil, Costa Rica and Colombia. This growing influence could become a real threat to democracy and diversity.
[1] This very popular evangelist is a fervent supporter of Donald Trump
El Reino (The Realm)
Follow Us
