Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has declared war on right-wing extremism.

The "new monster" of a "fanatical extreme" right must be crushed, Lula said in a speech to university rectors at the presidential palace in Brasília on Thursday.

He complained that supporters of this ideology hated those who thought differently: "I've never seen a Brazil that was seized by such hatred." The problem does not only affect Brazil, but also "the USA under Trump" and countries like Hungary or Italy.

Lula defeated right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in October's presidential election.

The left-leaning political veteran took office at the beginning of the year.

"Even if we have defeated Bolsonaro, we (still) have to defeat the hate, the lies, the disinformation, the fanatics so that this society becomes civilized again," said Lula in his speech to the university rectors.

After the storming of the government district in Brasília, the Brazilian government renewed the leadership of the police force.

26 of the 27 regional chiefs of Brazil's highway police have been fired, according to a publication in an extra edition of the government's official gazette on Wednesday evening.

Lula meets Chancellor Scholz in January

In addition, the government of President Lula exchanged 18 federal police chiefs in the states.

In Rio de Janeiro, for example, the new police directors include a former investigator in the case of city councilor Marielle Franco, who was killed by paramilitaries.

Similar allegations were made against the highway police because supporters of Bolsonaro were able to block numerous roads in large parts of Brazil almost unmolested after his election defeat in October.

On Wednesday he announced in an interview with the Globo News TV channel that he would also address the threat to democracy posed by right-wing extremism at his upcoming meetings with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and US President Joe Biden.

Lula will receive Scholz in Brasília on January 30th.

In February he will travel to Washington to meet Biden.

He also suggested that his predecessor knew about the plans to storm the Congress, the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Court in Brasília and "had a lot to do with it".

The ex-president, who is currently in the US, may have been hoping to return to Brazil after a coup, Lula said.

On January 8, supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro, who had just been replaced by Lula, stormed Congress, the seat of government and the Supreme Court in Brasília, causing extensive damage.

Around 1,500 Bolsonaro sympathizers have been arrested for the time being.

The left-wing politician Lula expressed the suspicion that the rioters had colluded, for example with members of the military and the federal police of the capital district.

Out of suspicion, he had relieved several dozen members of the military of their duties in the presidential residence.

Following the January 8 riots, Bolsonaro denied any involvement in the storming of government buildings and said he "regrets" the events.

However, even before the election and afterwards, he had systematically fueled doubts about the Brazilian electoral system and warned against electoral fraud.

He did not officially acknowledge his electoral defeat.