Ants Paju (10 September 1944 – 28 June 2011) was an Estonian politician, journalist, athlete, and engineer. He was a member of VIII Riigikogu. Ants Paju was born in the village of Tamsi, Pajusi Rural Municipality, Viljandi County (now, in Põltsamaa Parish, Jõgeva County). In 1949, aged four, he was deported with his family to Siberia with his family by Soviet authorities. Following the death of Joseph Stalin and the Khrushchev Thaw, the family were permitted to return to Estonia in 1955. He graduated from secondary school in Põltsamaa in 1963, and from the Estonian Academy of Agriculture (now, the Estonian University of Life Sciences) in 1970, with a degree in forest engineering. In 1979, he graduated from the Leningrad Higher Party School with a degree in journalism.