diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index af73bed..df64f3b 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -97,6 +97,11 @@ AS_IF([test "x$enable_gcov" != "xno"],
        ],
 )
 
+AM_PATH_PYTHON()
+AC_SUBST(PYTHON)
+AS_IF([$($PYTHON -c "import argparse")], [:],
+       AC_MSG_ERROR([python argparse module is missing]))
+
 AM_CONDITIONAL([GCOV_ENABLED], [test "x$enable_gcov" != "xno"])
 AC_SUBST([GCOV_CFLAGS])
 AC_SUBST([GCOV_LDFLAGS])
diff --git a/libevdev/Makefile.am b/libevdev/Makefile.am
index 552df70..94f5514 100644
--- a/libevdev/Makefile.am
+++ b/libevdev/Makefile.am
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ libevdevincludedir = $(includedir)/libevdev-1.0/libevdev
 libevdevinclude_HEADERS = libevdev.h libevdev-uinput.h
 
 event-names.h: Makefile make-event-names.py
-	        $(srcdir)/make-event-names.py --output=c > $@
+	$(PYTHON) $(srcdir)/make-event-names.py --output=c > $@
 
 EXTRA_DIST = make-event-names.py
 CLEANFILES = event-names.h