Sure, it's an XAtom, so it's easy to make the call from pyqt to it. Well, from any python app, it should be about the same call.

It's basically to call the counterpart of this:
hildon.hildon_gtk_window_set_portrait_flags(window , flags)

Anyway, the auto rotate is really convenient, because if you set that as the flag, the above line is the only thing you need from all that code from xorbit. Anyway, it's as easy with pyqt, I just don't have a snipplet at hand. Perhaps someone else has.