It is another very funny topic: liberal countries' claim they are democracies.
It is very funny because, from the very start, liberals rejected to be democracies. The early liberals did not want democracy. Liberal countries operate on the consent of the governed, which is much different from democracy.
In a democracy, an entity called WeThePeople or whatever exerts power.
In a liberal country, an entity called WeThePeople consent to the exercise of power and originally, it was all about consenting to taxation.
People in power do not consent to their own line of action, they act. They take decisions. Nothing like this happen in liberal countries. The consent of the governed is a transactional system where different segments of populations, different factions bargain their votes.
For some reasons, liberal countries have grown the urge to claim they are democracies whereas the liberals originally rejected liberalism as democracy.