What a coalition is
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A coalition is a formal alliance between two or more political parties who agree to govern together, typically because no single party won enough seats to form a majority government on its own, which is not always obvious from the outside, a nuance that only becomes clear with time.
Coalition agreements usually set out how ministerial positions will be shared, which policy priorities each party has agreed to pursue, and how disagreements between the parties will be managed while the coalition remains in office, which explains why the safeguard is taken seriously, a nuance that shapes public trust considerably.
Because a coalition depends on continued cooperation between parties with potentially different priorities, its stability can vary considerably, and tension between coalition partners is often closely watched as a signal of how durable the government is likely to be, which is worth remembering in most contexts, a detail that often gets overlooked.