For those interested, I'll post a quick example of the predict function translated from C++ (here) to python:

# I've only implemented the linear and rbf kernels
def kernel(params, sv, X):
    if params.kernel == 'linear':
        return [np.dot(vi, X) for vi in sv]
    elif params.kernel == 'rbf':
        return [math.exp(-params.gamma * np.dot(vi - X, vi - X)) for vi in sv]

# This replicates clf.decision_function(X)
def decision_function(params, sv, nv, a, b, X):
    # calculate the kernels
    k = kernel(params, sv, X)

    # define the start and end index for support vectors for each class
    start = [sum(nv[:i]) for i in range(len(nv))]
    end = [start[i] + nv[i] for i in range(len(nv))]

    # calculate: sum(a_p * k(x_p, x)) between every 2 classes
    c = [ sum(a[ i ][p] * k[p] for p in range(start[j], end[j])) +
          sum(a[j-1][p] * k[p] for p in range(start[i], end[i]))
                for i in range(len(nv)) for j in range(i+1,len(nv))]

    # add the intercept
    return [sum(x) for x in zip(c, b)]

# This replicates clf.predict(X)
def predict(params, sv, nv, a, b, cs, X):
    ''' params = model parameters
        sv = support vectors
        nv = # of support vectors per class
        a  = dual coefficients
        b  = intercepts 
        cs = list of class names
        X  = feature to predict       
    '''
    decision = decision_function(params, sv, nv, a, b, X)
    votes = [(i if decision[p] > 0 else j) for p,(i,j) in enumerate((i,j) 
                                           for i in range(len(cs))
                                           for j in range(i+1,len(cs)))]

    return cs[max(set(votes), key=votes.count)]

There are a lot of input arguments for predict and decision_function, but note that these are all used internally in by the model when calling predict(X). In fact, all of the arguments are accessible to you inside the model after fitting:

# Create model
clf = svm.SVC(gamma=0.001, C=100.)

# Fit model using features, X, and labels, Y.
clf.fit(X, y)

# Get parameters from model
params = clf.get_params()
sv = clf.support_vectors_ #added missing underscore
nv = clf.n_support_
#a  = clf.dual_coef_
a  = clf._dual_coef_ #use complementary dual coefficients
b  = clf._intercept_
cs = clf.classes_

# Use the functions to predict
print(predict(params, sv, nv, a, b, cs, X))

# Compare with the builtin predict
print(clf.predict(X))