South Korea's former parliamentary speaker was given Monday an eight-month jail term suspended for two years for bribing his way to the chairmanship of the ruling party in 2008.

Park Hee-tae, 74, is accused of ordering his aides to give a fellow ruling party lawmaker an envelope containing some three million won (2,583 U.S. dollars) in an attempt to buy his vote before the party leadership contest.

At the 2008 convention, he was elected head of the conservative Grand National Party, a precursor to the Saenuri Party. The six- term legislator held the post for two years before becoming a parliamentary speaker.

"The act of distributing cash envelopes during a ruling party's leadership contest is not a petty offense," the Seoul Central District said.

The court also gave a six-month suspended jail term to Kim Hyo- jae, a former presidential secretary who served as Park's secretary at the time, and fined another aide five million won.

The scandal, brought to light by former ruling party lawmaker Koh Seung-duk, forced both Park and Kim to resign from their respective posts earlier this year.

The two had initially denied all charges but later pleaded guilty.

The scandal was a blow to President Lee Myung-bak's Saenuri Party before the April general elections as the conservative party struggled to recover from a series of election defeats and corruption scandals.

The ruling party nonetheless achieved a surprising upset victory in the April polls, holding onto its parliamentary majority.

"The Grand National Party renamed itself the Saenuri Party and pledged reform measures to distance itself from moneyed politics, but the party wasn't given amnesty," the center-left main opposition said in response to the court ruling.

"We ask the Saenuri party to make excruciating efforts not to involve itself in moneyed politics," the opposition party added.