 Turnout fell to 43% from 56% in the 2008 senate elections and 46% in the February 2014 general election, which had been boycotted by the opposition, to only 42.51%

The election took place against the background of a political crisis in Thailand between the Shinawatra family, who have won all recent elections and are popular among the poor in the rural north, and the royalist and middle class establishment in Bangkok, who accuse them of corruption.The general election in February 2014 was boycotted by the opposition Democrat Party amid street protests against the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.A week before the senate election the Constitutional Court annulled the general election.