title: ImportError: cannot import name '_gi' from partially initialized module 'gi' (most likely due to a circular import)
body: <p>Looks like I have broken my python installation when I wanted to switch to python 3.8. Using Ubuntu 18.04. Trying to use the <code>gi</code>, gives the following error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ python
  Python 3.8.1 (default, Dec 31 2019, 18:42:42) 
  [GCC 7.4.0] on linux
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
   &gt;&gt;&gt; from gi.repository import GLib, Gio
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "&lt;stdin&gt;", line 1, in &lt;module&gt;
    File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py", line 42, in &lt;module&gt;
      from . import _gi
  ImportError: cannot import name '_gi' from partially initialized module 'gi' (most likely due to a circular import) (/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/__init__.py)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Tried running update-alternatives for python, but it tells me there is only one python alternative configured (3.8).</p>
  
  <p>Tried to reinstall python3-gi and python3.8. Still the same problem</p>