What we are seeing now is an attempt to rewrite history. To once again present Zuma as a victim (his most prized status) of the judiciary, the establishment, white monopoly capitalism, backstabbers and the media. There is an attempt to promote him as a peacemaker, someone who can unite and speak to the needs of the marginalised. Someone whose versatility enables him to embrace tradition but who can take us on a modern development path. This is fake news of the highest order.

'If we cannot succeed with the agenda of decent work and poverty eradication with Jacob Zuma as the President, Kgalema Motlanthe as the Deputy President responsible for poverty eradication, Gwede Mantashe as the ANC Secretary-General, Ebrahim Patel as the Minister of Economic Development and Rob Davies as the Minister of Trade and Industry, then there is little possibility that we can succeed to make any next period that of workers and the poor.

"This is the moment that comes once in a long time. We, the leaders of the generation largely responsible for this political climate, so pregnant with real possibilities, cannot afford to squander this moment," according to Cosatu's Political Report, from its 10th congress, held in September 2009.

This excerpt shows how confident and hopeful the leadership of the Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) was about the prospects of what we called the Polokwane moment (following the ANC conference) just a few months after Jacob Zuma took power.

We thought we were on the cusp of radical change. We thought a new dawn was about to break. We were profoundly wrong. Let us examine the circumstances that led to that situation.

We were not wrong to...