Actually I think the problem (see the attached file susebuild.log) is 
in the module time.so: during the build the python interpreter has not 
access to it (it is dynamically loaded) and it fails.

If that works is because an already python is set in the system (and 
the ./configure prefix is set to /usr): on the suse build server the 
system is regenerated from scratch every time making possible to catch 
this sort of side effects.

This way to build it is called continuous integration and it works 
forcing a hands-off approach to the build-install-test cycle (I cannot 
stress enough about the impressive work done by the SuSE people).

I'll fire tonight a new build on the suse build server with the latest 
patch and a small smoke test (is should catch the most obvious errors).
But are you convinced about the need for the "import pdb; pdb.set_trace
()"? 

If everything goes fine the latest build should be in:

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/cavallo71:/python-opt

Moreover there are few external modules compiled using this "new" 
interpreter (imaging and setuptools at the moment): this should give a 
reasonable confidence the distutils is not broken after changes.