Sorry, I won't believe any politician's words. What your friend said to you is also a way to become philanthropist in public's eyes but actually doing stealing behind the scene and filling own bank accounts. These corrupts want to look good in public and that is what maybe your friend's words forced you to write and to take your support from here.
You don't deserve to be blamed for not having faith or not being able to trust anything regarding politicians because of what they have done to us. But you forgot one thing, he is OP's friend and I believe if they were best friends, they would understand each other very well. I mean, I don't think OP is so naive that he can't tell if his best friend is a good or bad person. OP knows his friend better than we do, and if he believes what his friend says then we have no reason to doubt him.
When it comes to politicians, we all think of those in power, but in reality it is not so, there are still many politicians living a life of poverty and misery in my country.