Mona Sahlin resigns as head of Sweden’s opposition Social Democrat Party after an emergency meeting in Stockholm Sunday.

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• Swedish leftwing-leader gets golden handshake
• 'Swedish model' party in crisis

Mona Sahlin, 53, will not be standing for re-election at the upcoming special national party conference, she told a press conference Sunday afternoon.

“I’ve been thinking about this for some time,” she said, according to Swedish Radio News. “We have to show ourselves outwardly in a way we haven’t done previously. There is a great need to open ourselves up, and for younger people with other opinions to come into the party.”

The traditional left's slump in the September elections has rocked the political scene in Sweden, where Social Democrats were instrumental in putting in place the so-called "Swedish model".

Since the poor election result there had been increasing calls for Mona Sahlin to resign her position. Many other veterans in the party also face the risk of losing their positions in the upcoming special party congress scheduled for March.

"I have played an important role, now it's up to others to do so," Mona Sahlin said.

Sahlin has led the party since 2007 and will do so until the congress in March.

Founded in 1889, the Social Democrat party has governed Sweden for more than 80 percent of the time since 1932. Up until the mid-1990s, the Social Democrats would routinely garner around 45 percent of votes. The party won 30.9 percent of the September vote, five percentage points down from its 2006 result, considered at the time a political disaster.

"The Social Democrats no longer symbolise the Swedish model," Swedish political scientist Stig-Björn Ljunggren with left-leaning sympathies told AFP. "They've lost their magic, they don't know how to tell the story of that model anymore".

According to an opinion poll Sunday, the Moderate Party is now the largest parliamentary party in Sweden.