El Salvador's gang-busting President Nayib Bukele, who can now seek unlimited reelection following a constitutional change, embraces the moniker of "dictator" and breezily shrugs off concerns about human rights transgressions.

Critics fear Thursday's parliamentary vote to abolish presidential term limits clears the path for the 44-year-old's final embrace of authoritarianism.

But despite mounting concerns, he remains wildly popular at home and abroad for his war on gangs, with citizens of many crime and violence-plagued countries clamoring for a Bukele of their own.

His crackdown has seen nearly 90,000 presumed gangsters sent to a prison he had specially built under a state of emergency that has now been in place for over three years.

It is a move credited with plummeting homicide rates but also criticized for indiscriminate arrests -- including of minors -- inhumane prison conditions, torture and deaths in custody, according to rights groups.

For Bukele, a small price to pay.

"We... changed the murder capital of the world, the world's most dangerous country, into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere," he........

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