Peru's presidential candidates wrapped up campaigning on Thursday night in advance of tomorrow's vote, with all three leading candidates holding mass rallies around the country.
Mr Alejandro Toledo, favourite to win the first round of voting, promised "a new Peru", while Ms Lourdes Flores pledged "national reconciliation" and Mr Alan Garcia settled for "social justice" should he be re-elected to office.
While Peruvian law prohibited further campaigning this weekend, along with the sale of alcohol, the winds of change were already evident within Peru's judiciary, which now dares to detain those responsible for abuses during Mr Alberto Fujimori's presidency.
Gen Nicolas Hermoza, former army chief, was arrested on Thursday evening on drug-trafficking charges, a move which would have been unthinkable before last November.
The shift in Peru's legal institutions began when Mr Valentin Paniagua, then head of parliament, was elected caretaker president in November after Mr Fujimori fled to Japan.
Mr Fujimori's spy chief, Mr Vladimiro Montesinos, regarded as the Rasputin behind the throne, fled the country after secret videos showed him bribing politicians, press and business representatives. Mr Paniagua reinstated three constitutional judges sacked in 1997 for refusing to back Mr Fujimori's illegal bid for a third presidential term, appointed an independent prosecutor and a new electoral institute.
In addition to drug-trafficking charges, Gen Hermoza was linked to a state death squad called "Grupo Colina" held responsible for the murder of dozens of dissidents in the early 1990s. A previous attempt to open investigation into army abuses was cut short when Gen Hermoza ordered tanks onto the streets of Lima in 1993.
Mr Fujimori secured an amnesty for his army allies in 1995 but the Supreme Court is now pursuing a legal challenge to it. Peru's armed forces have fallen into disrepute following revelations of torture, disappearances, money-laundering and illegal arms sales to Colombian rebels.
The climate of change was underlined this week as Peru's best-known political prisoner, US citizen Ms Lori Berenson, gave evidence on television during a retrial over her conviction for terrorist offences. Like thousands of Peruvians, Ms Berenson was arrested in the 1990s, tried in secret and condemned to life imprisonment.
In another case Mr Baruch Ivcher, owner of a private TV station, was stripped of his channel and his nationality in 1997, after a report on the torture and death of a repentant secret service agent by army intelligence operatives.