zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available

If you encounter the following error:

$ python get-pip.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "get-pip.py", line 19177, in <module>
    main()
  File "get-pip.py", line 194, in main
    bootstrap(tmpdir=tmpdir)
  File "get-pip.py", line 82, in bootstrap
    import pip
zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available
$

install `zlib-devel` as follows:

sudo yum install zlib-devel

and rebuild and install Python as follows:

./configure --prefix=/home/izeye/programs/python
make
make install

Reference:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6169522/no-module-named-zlib