First of all, of course Democracy has nothing to do with any supposed "absolute defense of freedom", because it is a system of attribution of power, involving coercion - because a fine line separates balance of interests ("politics") and actual coercion. So, of course, if one empowered inadequate individuals the rules will be absurd and damaging - and this has been actually happening, and it is not surprising at all to an etiologic analysis.
But second, soon after Hammurabi started his reign in minus 1792 of the typical timescale, already since the framework established those many millennia ago power is limited - constitutionalism is very old. So, not only it is already well established that some will be empowered, it is also well established that they will not be fully empowered.
There is no lesson that, in general, "power limits freedom": there is full evidence that the current systems need much more R&D. To note that, you already had e.g. gerrymandering, which is very graphic, or the failures in quality citizenship development - kind of the opposite of the hopeful depiction in "12 Angry Men" - which is very pervading.
https://harvardpolitics.com/a-last-stand-for-freedom-global-...
When the article mentions that risk of «reducing popular confidence in the democratic model», it clearly indicates it as an hysterical response, suggesting literally the possibility of «apparent [only] success» increase on the side of autocracies. The whole sub-context reinforces the evidence that Democracy requires, as a foundation, curbing the roots and risks of phenomena like hysterical responses - there is a systemic matter about the care for the roots enabling Democracy, a matter which the article notes in terms like those stating an «already declining state of global democracy». If there is a risk that some may think "ah but an iron fist would solve it" (oversimplifications, "silver bullets" - populism), then you have a problem, gravely impacting Democracy, that you have to solve through Education.
The contextual opposite of the caused damage, of arbitrary measures, is not a "freedom to", but a "freedom from" - freedom from the absurd. This requires proper maintenance of the system. That requires proper information subsystems, with special regard to investigative journalism. That is to be free to live in a well working and fair system - a specific form of Freedom.
Are people in Africa free? Are they happy? Is you dependency on state and money a freedom? What about morale? Is it freedom to be narcissistic? Is it freedom to has millions different laws? Is it freedom to have imaginary choice of voting for someone who has money and someone who has even more money? Is it freedom to be forced to use platform that collects data about you? Is it freedom to live in society where fear drive politics?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_M...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human...
But we have failed to implement them. I think we need to admit that democracy worked well towards that goal in the 20th century but it has been set back with the help of technology in recent decades. The amount of surveillance and manipulation of the current world is astounding by historic standards and it is used against the individual. We should also not compare our democracies to failed mafia states or undeveloped ones, but to ourselves.