Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-33186873-20171106153304/@comment-734582-20171117084556

Vladosaurus wrote: Itachi was like 21 when he died, and i doubt that the Leaf would've allowed him to take over at such young age. Maybe, maybe not. Hiruzen seems to have thought that he had at least a few more years in him (Onoki was even older), so it seems to me he was waiting for Itachi (and possibly Kakashi, Tsunade or Jiraiya)

Vladosaurus wrote: They were sceptic even with Minato, who was like 23, and was still considered too young. I guess we can say that he was lucky that he proved himself alot during the war True Vladosaurus wrote: The leaf clearly kind of had a policy against young Hokages, unlike the sand village for example who made Gaara the Kazekage at 15 for some reason. Not really, it's more that the Leaf has had the luxury of multiple candidates and time to wait. As got explained during the Gaara Rescue, the Sand waited once before and it cost them dearly. They didn't make this mistake with Gaara's father. As to why Gaara, it seems that they either had little choice or that they favor the kin of Kage over random new people.