At the 2023 election New Zealand will face the starkest choice between left and right in decades

National leader Christopher Luxon could well become the next prime minister with the help of libertarian Act party – but Act will want a say in shaping his agenda. Photograph: Juan Zarama Perini/The Guardian

Since tossing out the first past the post electoral system in the mid-1990s, New Zealand governments have had a centrist streak.

There have been turns of the dial one way or another, but these were generally reined in by centrist parties that were essential to forming government – usually NZ First or United Future.