brazil president luiz inacio lula da silva spoke on thursday of his desire to defeat the new monster that is the fanatical far right not just in his country but throughout the whole world leftist former trade unionist lula took over at the beginning of this month from far right former president jair bolsonaro after defeating his bitter rival in last octobers election at 77 lula is now serving his third term as president having previously led latin americas largest economy from 200310 we have to challenge and defeat the new monster that is the emergence of a fanatical rabid far right that hates all of those that dont share their thoughts lula told university rectors at the presidential palace in brasilia lula said this was not only a brazilian problem but said he had never before seen the country gripped by so much hate he compared populist exleader bolsonaros impact on the country to that of former us president donald trump  bolsonaro was often branded the tropical trump  or the right wing leadership in hungary and italy although we have defeated bolsonaro we must still defeat hate lies disinformation fanatics because this society needs to return to being civilized on january 8 a week after lulas return to office thousands of bolsonaro supporters stormed the seats of power in brasilia occupying the presidential palace congress and the supreme court vandalizing facades and smashing up offices since then around 2000 people have been arrested while almost 1400 remain detained in an interview with globo news television channel lula pointed the finger at bolsonaro over the chaos he said bolsonaros initial silence on the matter and his decision to fly to miami just before it happened suggested that he knew what would happen and he had a lot to do with that maybe bolsonaro hoped to return to brazil amidst the glory of a coup detat on wednesday night lula said he would welcome german chancellor olaf scholz on january 30 and would meet with us president joe biden in february to discuss a common approach to the far right