Dragan Mektić

Mektić graduated an engineering-orientated vocational high school in the Bosnian city of Banja Luka. Following his graduation, he enrolled and completed a higher administrative school, and eventually warner a degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Zagreb.

From 1980 to 1997 Mektić directed a police station, where he was engaged in suppressing general and financial crime. Then, from 1997 to 2003, Mektić was employed in the intelligence sector of Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 2002 to 2007 he was deputy of the then security minister Bariša Čolak,[2] followed by nine years, from 2006 to 2015, as director of the Service for Foreigners' Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On 31 March 2015 Mektić was appointed Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of the government led by Denis Zvizdić.[3]

Mektić is generally considered to be a popular political figure in the Republic of Srpska, and to some extent, in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well, mainly due to his open opposition to the Bosnian-Serb political leader Milorad Dodik.[4][5]

In media, Mektić was generally portrayed to have a very no-nonsense, but somewhat ludicrious and near-eccentric attitude.

On one instance, in November 2019, Mektić had ripped apart his Army of Republika Srpska veteran-membership booklet on live TV in protest to the current government of the Republic of Srpska.[6]

Mektić would go on to display his personality on live-TV once again. In an informal interview, Mektić had talked about his childhood in Prnjavor, discussing his parents and their attitudes. He was quoted as saying:

"In some cases, my father would beat the hell out of me; I often hid on top a beech tree for hours at the time"

Following this interview, it was implied that he was physically abused as a child, having been a victim of a textbook-example of domestic violence.[7]