Those who disapprove of coalition governments believe that such governments have

a tendency to be fractious and prone to disharmony, as their component parties hold

differing beliefs and thus may not always agree on policy.[14] Sometimes the results
of an election mean that the coalitions which are mathematically most probable are
ideologically infeasible, for example in Flanders or Northern Ireland. A second difficulty
might be the ability of minor parties to play "kingmaker" and, particularly in close
elections, gain far more power in exchange for their support than the size of their
vote would otherwise justify.
Coalition governments have also been criticized[by whom?] for sustaining a consensus on
issues when disagreement and the consequent discussion would be more fruitful.
To forge a consensus, the leaders of ruling coalition parties can agree to silence
their disagreements on an issue to unify the coalition against the opposition. The
coalition partners, if they control the parliamentary majority, can collude to make the
parliamentary discussion on the issue irrelevant by consistently disregarding the
arguments of the opposition and voting against the opposition's proposals — even if
there is disagreement within the ruling parties about the issue.
Powerful parties can also act in an oligocratic way to form an alliance to stifle the
growth of emerging parties. Of course, such an event is rare in coalition
governments when compared to two-party systems, which typically exist because of
stifling of the growth of emerging parties, often through discriminatory nomination
rules regulations and plurality voting systems, and so on.
A single, more powerful party can shape the policies of the coalition
disproportionately. Smaller or less powerful parties can be intimidated to not openly
disagree. In order to maintain the coalition, they would have to vote against their own
party's platform in the parliament. If they do not, the party has to leave the
government and loses executive power. However, this is contradicted by the
"kingmaker" factor mentioned above.