Board Thread:Theories and Speculation/@comment-33186873-20171106153304/@comment-30323490-20171116204450

Itachi was like 21 when he died, and i doubt that the Leaf would've allowed him to take over at such young age.

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, and the Leaf was kind of in a "crisis" to find a new Hokage, since Hiruzen felt that he was "diplomatically forced" to step down, and there was no really suitable candidate other than Minato except Orochimaru, but we know how the higher ups felt about him.

With Naruto, again it was another story. Naruto was not only the hero of the leaf, but the hero of the world as well. So him becoming the Hokage young as well is not surprising.

So even if Itachi would've stayed in the leaf, i seriously doubt that he would've become the Hokage until he was at lest 30 maybe, at his best.

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.