Pehrson announced his decision at a press conference on Monday afternoon.
He told reporters it was his decision, but Aftonbladet reports that several regional boards of the struggling party had demanded Pehrson's resignation and that a crisis meeting had been held as late as the past weekend, according to unnamed sources speaking to the tabloid.
The party has long failed to improve its polling numbers, with two surveys from April having them at 2.5 and 2.8 percent.
Those are the worst figures of any Swedish party, almost half of its result in the 2022 election and well below the parliamentary threshold of 4 percent.
Pehrson's announcement comes just weeks after three party heavyweights stepped down within less than 24 hours, apparently independently of each other, including Equality Minister Paulina Brandberg, who said she wanted to spend more time with family.
A few days earlier, Carl B Hamilton, the Liberal Party grandee and former MP, had mercilessly laid into Pehrson, calling for him to resign and make way for a successor in an intemperate post on Facebook (now deleted).
But despite the party's poor performance in the polls, Pehrson's departure was unexpected, and public broadcaster SVT's home affairs expert Mats Knutson called it "sensational". His press secretary without notice cut Monday's press conference short with several of Sweden's major media outlets, such as Aftonbladet and Expressen, not being given the opportunity to ask questions.
"I am proud of the Liberals which for now is too small a party in a few opinion polls, but we carry Sweden and have influence," Pehrson, 56, said before the press conference ended.
"I'm not very old but I am newly married and have led the party through two election campaigns. I have fulfilled my political duty."
Despite usually aligning with the right wing, the Liberals for several years refused to back a right-wing government dependent on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats. But a year before the 2022 election, Pehrson's predecessor, Nyamko Sabuni, broke off the January Agreement under which the Liberal Party and Centre Party supported a centre-left prime minister and pulled the party back into opposition.
Pehrson took over as leader in April 2022, 24 years after he was first elected to parliament for the party.
In 2022, the Liberals controversially joined a government together with the Moderates and Christian Democrats, backed by the Sweden Democrats – drawing criticism both from within the party and from its European counterparts abroad.
The party is now set to elect a new leader at an extraordinary meeting on June 24th. Possible successors include Schools Minister Lotta Edholm, Equality Minister Nina Larsson, Climate Minister Romina Pourmokhtari or Integration Minister Mats Persson.
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