Harry and Meghan arrives in Fiji in British royals' first visit since 2006 coup

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Britain's Prince Harry and his wife Meghan touched down in Fiji on Tuesday for the first time to the South Pacific nation since a military coup 12 years ago saw it suspended from the Commonwealth for eight years until democratic elections.

Hundreds of spectators waved small plastic Fijian and British flags as Harry, wearing a gray suit, and Meghan, dressed in a cream long-sleeved dress and matching hat, stepping on the tarmac outside the capital of Suva.

"Regardless of the drizzling rain, Fijians are out in numbers with their umbrellas to welcome their royal highnesses," the Fiji government said on social network.

Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama received the couple, who were presented with a bouquet of tropical flowers before the inspection.

Thousands of men, women and schoolchildren lined the road of the couple's official motorcade in central Suva, with many spectators smiling, waving and holding up handwritten signs.

"Welcome to Fiji, Princess and Prince," read one that has been written on an old carton.

Harry and Meghan at a ceremony in Suva, mirroring a welcome for Queen Elizabeth in 1953. Men and women in the park.

The British colony of 300 tropical islands, with a population of about 910,000, was suspended from the British Commonwealth and isolated internationally after Bainimarama, then commanded, seized power in a bloodless coup in 2006.

Although it was reinstated in 2014, after Bainimarama won democratic elections, mending Commonwealth ties has taken a long time, while Fiji has deepened relations with strategic rivals such as China.

Before Tuesday, the last British royal visit to the island by Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth's daughter, in July 2006.

The couple, who married in May and announced that they were expecting a child, to Tonga and return to Australia for the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games before wrapping up their tour in New Zealand.

Fiji is due to hold elections on Nov. 14, with Bainimarama's Fiji First party favored to win over an opposition led by Sitiveni Rabuka, who did the country's first military coup in 1987.